Alternate Universe
by Jadebell31
Summary: What would have happened if Kate Beckett did not meet Richard Castle as told in the Pilot?
1. The Cafe

Title: Alternate Universe Fic

Author: Jadebell31

Pairing: Kate Beckett/Richard Castle

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: I do not own anything. The characters of the tv show Castle are owned by ABC, etc. Please do not sue!

Summary: What would have happened if Kate Beckett did not meet Richard Castle at told in the Pilot?

* * *

The café, although it would have been practically deserted anywhere else in the country, was still full of customers claiming their last shot of caffeine before going to sleep. Kate Beckett, however, was not waiting for a shot of caffeine, having a cup in front of her already. Her tapping of the fingers and frequent glances at the door to the café confirmed the suspicions of the well-dressed man hidden behind the bush/tree placed strategically in front of his corner booth. She was waiting for someone. A guy? A date? He grinned at the thought of watching a Manhattan romance – either of the booty-call variety or the true-romance quality – come alive in front of him.

With another glance at the man's watch on her wrist – there's a story there. Either from a man who passed away who was close to her, or maybe…

A man entered the café, appearing before her in the time it took her to touch her coffee, before she could look at the door again. She jumped as he approached. First in surprise, and then, when she saw who it was, in joy. The blondish man with dark lowlights who the woman had been waiting to see proclaimed, "Who's the best cousin in the entire world!" shocking even the too-cool Manhattanites in the café.

The man in the corner of the café continued to look on with interest, especially at the bag the blonde man was carrying. A festive, Happy Birthday! in bright, girly (pink, purple, blue) colors let the onlookers know what the occasion was. Completing the look was a purple ribbon adorned to the cord handles, probably placed there by the clerk at the register. No man actually thinks of putting a ribbon on a bag.

The woman, brunette, tall with short hair, pulled the other man into the seat across from her, laughing at the man's antics as much as at what he might have brought her. Her face relaxed in its joy, smoothing out the line that had drawn up her forehead as she had been waiting for her companion to arrive. Opening the bag with obvious glee, she pulled out…

His book!

Richard Castle's eyebrows could not have gone any further up his forehead. She was looking at the guy across from her, her cousin he reminded himself gleefully, like he'd just given her a tiara and told her that she was a newly crowned princess of Disneyland.

He'd enjoyed looking at the woman since she walked in. First, because she was hot. Second, because she looked like she was waiting for someone, impatiently, too, and he wanted to know who. Know who indeed. She wasn't so happy to see him, the cousin, so much as she was happy to see him, Richard Castle. Or, at least in book form. This was going to be fun!


	2. The Cafe 2 and His Bedroom

Disclaimer: In first part.

* * *

Castle strode up to the woman after the man left her side, whispering what were probably wishes for a happy birthday and leaving her a kiss on the cheek. Very brotherly. Or cousinly.

Now she was currently engaged in her book. Sparing a glance the dedication (no idea how much grief they caused in the publishing world), she went straight for Chapter 1. She bit her lip, probably in anticipation of the next few hundred pages. He decided that this was the perfect time to approach her. Reveling in his work, and yet not so far along that she'd be fully engrossed in his words, unable to discern her surroundings.

"Whatcha reading?" He asked her as he approached her table. Her head lifted out of the book for a second. Without looking at him, she decided to ignore the person who dared to interrupt her

"I thought I recognized it as the new Richard Castle novel," he started again. "I hear that it's a best-seller."

Still without looking up, she replied testily, "Well if you know that much, then you probably know what my answer is going to be to the next question that you ask." She gave a tight smile as she deigned to life her head out of her new treasure, assured that the man who tried to bother her would back off as soon as he got a look at her interrogation glare, sure to get perps to confess without asking for a lawyer. Then she got a look at the guy.

Unsure of what to say, she flipped to the back cover discreetly. Or not so discreetly since the next words out of his mouth were, "Do you like the picture?" before perfectly imitating it in front of her. Perfect because, well, he _was_ the guy in the picture on the back cover. There was no way around it. He was Richard Castle. And he was sitting right in front of her.

* * *

"I never do this," she kept repeating to him, as he backed her up against the door to his apartment then the door to his room, then against the bed frame. "Never," she kept insisting, as they traded hot kisses at each stopping point.

"I believe you," he kept replying to her pleas that she never did this: have a one-night stand either with or not with a famous person.

"I mean it," she told him, earnestly. The truthful look in her eyes made him stop for a moment, almost believing her. He caressed the side of her face once before changing the pace of his kisses. Now they were both aiming towards each other's mouths at the same time. And meeting. Slower this time, he fully entwined his tongue in hers, dueling for supremacy with the surprisingly heated woman. Once she realized what was at stake, pride or something else, she managed to match him, kiss for kiss, hotness for hotness.

Neither were willing to accede to the other. They only managed to remove their outer clothing before falling, lips still entangled, onto the bed. Out-of-breath, they both broke off the kiss, he a fraction of a second before she did.

She grinned up at her conquest; or she was his conquest. She didn't seem to care anymore. She flipped him over, so that she ended up straddling him as she threw off her own t-shirt, letting it float down to join the sweater that he'd managed to get off of her before they hit the bed. She smiled again, undoing each button on his shirt before he managed to get ahold of her bra clasp.

"Ready?" He asked, seriously, but with a grin, too.

"You have no idea," she replied.


	3. His Apartment

Disclaimer: Still in first part.

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Castle finished putting the rose in the vase to go on the tray when he realized that the eggs were done. Scooping them out of the pan, he placed them on a clean plate. The plate was the last touch to his breakfast wake-up call: a nice breakfast and a little sex added up to a perfect morning.

"Too bad no-one's here to see me make a perfect breakfast tray," he said to himself, adding the last plate with a flourish.

Dressed in boxers – and nothing else – he planned to give his recent conquest a choice: breakfast or him. Smiling jauntily at what was sure to be her decision, he draped a white hand towel over his arm and prepared to enter his bedroom.

Unfortunately for him, and his plans, the front door opened at that exact moment, bearing his daughter and his mother, both laughing and loaded down with the luggage that they'd taken on his daughter's trip to D.C. with her school. Well, his daughter had taken the lone duffle bag, but his mother had taken half of her wardrobe.

"Alexis? Mother!?!" exclaimed a surprised Castle, stopping in his tracks. They weren't do home for another day.

"Hey Dad," Alexis smiled at her father, dropping her bags to give him a hug. "I missed you so much," she said as she squeezed him tightly, as if she'd been away for more than a few days. "But I found a perfect place for your monument." She glanced up at her father, smiling at their joke.

He smiled weakly as he gave her a one-armed hug, using the other to continue to hold up the breakfast tray. He shot a quick glance towards his bedroom door. He hoped that his guest would either remain sleeping as he had left her or at least stay quiet until he could explain the 'situation' to his family.

"Hey Dad?" his daughter questioned, her perceptive eyes noticing the breakfast tray that he held. "What's going on?"

She stepped back as she glanced from her father in boxers, holding a breakfast tray, to his closed bedroom door. "You didn't?" Off of her father's affirmative, if shameful, nod, she exclaimed, "Dad?!?"

Castle sighed as he looked at his daughter, who moved away from him. Crossing her arms, she made a perfect picture of her step-mom, his last wife, who had always been able to pull of the disapproving stare that was standing in front of him now.

"In our home?" she questioned, more hurt than angry at the thought of one of her father's bimbos being in her house. It was supposed to be her safe haven, not a place where he could bring his fan-girls and other bimbos. "I thought we agreed that you wouldn't do that. Ever." She waited for a response.

"I didn't think that you would be home for another day," he managed to stutter out an explanation.

"Whatever, Dad," his daughter gave him a disgusted look before heading upstairs to her room. He winced at the sound of the door slamming shut.

Back on the first level, he glanced at his mother.

Martha remained silent, as she picked her way to the fridge for a glass of wine. Never too early when it was needed, he knew was her motto.

Richard sighed. Daughter mad, check. Mother drinking, check. Kate, mystery guest of the night…

Richard glanced again at the door to his bedroom. He wondered if the slam of his daughter's door had woken up his guest. Tip-toeing, though probably useless, to the sturdy wooden door, he peeked inside.

The form of his lady guest was still asleep, curled up on her side of the bed. Other than a bad case of bed-head when she woke up, whenever that appeared to be, she seemed fine. Actually, she looked a little too fine. Was she breathing? Panicked for a second at the thought of having a dead body in his bed, he stepped quickly into the room, trying to come up with an explanation for that for his daughter.

He paused by the side of bed, waiting a few moments while he gauged that she was still breathing. He sighed in relief as he sensed her movements that proved she was still alive. Now what?


	4. His Apartment 2

A/N: Disclaimer in first part. Also, I changed some things at the end, adding a scene that I had forgotten about. It doesn't really change the story, but I liked it in my head, so I decided to put in on paper.

* * *

Castle managed to grab some clothes from his bedroom and change in his adjoining bathroom, all without waking his guest before settling himself in front of the breakfast tray that he had prepared for her. Castle busied himself eating the eggs and toast while listening to his mother's silent disapproval from across the table, where she was starting her second glass of wine. He winced.

"Second, Mother, really?" questioned her son. "It's not even 11 am yet." He raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, Richard. Really," his mother insisted. "How else am I going to deal with an angry and hurt teenager without some liquid courage?" She waved the full glass of red wine in the direction of the stairs.

Castle sighed, knowing that she was, at least partially, right. Not about needing liquid courage, as she called it. But she was right about having an angry and hurt teenager upstairs. Hurting his daughter was the last thing that he wanted to do. Period. He'd vowed before she was born that he didn't want his daughter to grow up like he did: a nomadic existence based on Broadway and Off-Broadway plays; the ever-revolving line of men that his mother courted constantly, despite the young and not-so-young son that she had to raise.

He'd been pretty successful at the first part of his vow. The lifestyle of an affluent writer, although giving him time and opportunity to pursue his pursuits of women and fame, also allowed him to be a constant presence in his daughter's life. And he enjoyed every second of it, whether it was taking her to the museum, pretending to be on safari; or taking her to the playground three seasons of the year. He'd been there for her when she was younger, and he planned to be there for her when she was older too. Like now.

His thoughts slipped away as he heard footsteps descend on the stairway. Looking at his daughter, her expression unreadable even to him (when did that happen?), the first words out of his mouth were, "I'm sorry. Truly sorry. It will never happen again." He looked to her for some sort of acceptance at his apology.

And she gave it. She moved across the room quietly, surprising him with another hug, this time with an even tighter grip, as if that were possible. He smiled into her hair, kissing her on the top of her head before pulling back. "No more guests," he promised sincerely. "Pinky promise," he held up his small finger.

"Pinky promise," she grabbed his finger with the matching one on her own hand, smiling at her father. He may not always make the best choices in life – the one about the naked joyride on the police horse being one memorable example – but she loved him, and he did always try to do right by her. Or almost always, at least, she amended silently. She grinned up at him, unable to stay made at him for too long. "So what's for breakfast?" she asked.

"Whatever you want," Richard promised his daughter.

"Hmm, well how about we start with my own pony and move on from there," Alexis said jokingly, dispelling any further tension between the two.

Castle pulled a face, "You really want to eat a pony?" he mocked his daughter. "This isn't a third-world country, you know?"

Rolling her eyes, she suggested, "Hey, why don't we go out to eat?" She motioned to her grandmother, "I'm sure that we can find some place in the city that serves mimosas."

Richard stood up from his chair where he had sat back down after his daughter didn't seem mad at him anymore, grinning at his smiling daughter.

"Richard, dear," Martha stopped his movements with a single pointed stare, popping the happy bubble that had encircled the pair in front of her.

"What, Mother?" he asked indulgently.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" she questioned. Exasperated with his blankness, she jerked her head in the direction of his the door to his bedroom, still closed and inhabited by his guest. "Or someone?"

"Oh," he remembered belatedly.

"Dad?" questioned his daughter, the situation still not clear to her.

"Yeah, sweetie," he tried to explain. "She's still not awake yet," he finally blurted out. His daughter backed away from him again.

"Dad!?!" Her voice was a measure of disbelief. His previously angelic-looking daughter was rapidly approaching his ex-wife's stare again.

"Look, I'm sorry sweetie," he tried to console his daughter, "but what do you want me do?" he questioned her. "Wake her up and tell her to go home? I'm just trying to be a good host here." He smiled weakly at his daughter, hoping that she wouldn't remain too mad at him this time.

She didn't look too happy at him, at least what he could judge from her inscrutable expression (seriously, when did _that_ happen?). But at least she didn't run back up the stairs and slam her door.

"So now what?" she questioned him.

A few hours later, all seemed right in the Castle household. The two younger Castles were playing a generic board game – but with their own rules. Martha was watching TV, flicking through the stations for an episode of The Hulk in which she guest-starred. Memorably, she added to anyone that asked.

"Checkmate!" the youngest of the family crowed as she crowned her piece with a miniature top-hat. "My queen of the Ominverse beats your lowly warrior, Voltar."

"Oh no," Castle cried, as he collapsed on the floor, seemingly unable to control the limbs of his body anymore.

Alexis laughed at the dramatic aspects of her dad. Years of playing scene partner with his mother had definitely taught him some tricks. She just wasn't sure that they were the good ones.

A sound alerted the three members of the Castle household that their guest had finally awaken. All waited in anticipation for her arrival in the living room: would she slink out in morning-after shame; would she hold her head up high and demand something in return from Castle for spending the night there; or maybe she would just say, "Hi. Thanks for the night." And leave. No one was putting much stock in that last option.

Entering the living room was a tall brunette woman, slightly disheveled and with a bad case of bed head that she kept running her fingers through. She didn't even seem to notice them at first, speaking hurriedly on her cell phone.

"Yes, sir," she said, "Yes, sir. Yes, sir." She looked at the scene before her – Rick on the ground, head propped up in his hand; the older woman holding a remote in her hand; and the teenage girl, open-mouthed, staring at her blankly. She stopped, fully-dressed, but still without her shoes.

Continuing on the phone, she told the other person, "I understand, sir." Glancing at the scene in front of her again, she decided to finish the conversation as quickly as she could. The best way, as far as she could figure out, was to tell the truth.

"Yes, sir, I do understand. I understand that it's easier to yell at me for not being on call and sober, since the guy that was on call is, uh, not." That seemed to have ended the conversation, since a few seconds later she hung up the phone, with another, "Yes, sir."

That done with, she looked at the scene in front of her. Rick had gotten up off the floor, approaching her as she ended her call.

"Hey," he said to her quietly.

"Hey," she replied, glancing between the younger girl on the floor beside the coffee table that still held the board game that they'd been playing and the man in front of her. Martha waved her hand at the woman, giving a 'been-there too, honey' smile at the woman that had been the unexpected guest of her son for the night.

"This is my daughter," Rick indicated at the girl, who hadn't moved an inch since she'd burst through the bedroom door. "And this is my mother." He waved his hand at the older woman, still in front of the TV.

Kate gave him an incredulous look. Reading her look as he did his daughter's – the what-the-hell-why-did-you-bring-a-one-night-stand-to-your-apartment-where-your-sixteen-year-old-daughter-lives, he could only come up with the same excuse.

"They came home early," he told her quietly and sheepishly. He shrugged a little as he continued to give her a tight smile.

Shocking him, she gave him a glare worse than his ex-wife's and his daughter's, combined. His tried to avoid the death-glare by saying, "I swear, I never bring…dates…home." He held up his hands in the Boy Scout's salute. "Scout's honor."

She gave him a hard look, but refrained from telling him what she thought in the presence of his daughter and mother. Turning towards the other women in the room, ignoring her "date," she asked, "Um, has anyone seen my boots?" She waited, unsure of the answer given by the girl, who probably didn't like her father bringing home "dates" to her house, or the older woman, who was she, anyway?

The girl remained silent, staring at the board game in front of her, littered with mixed up pieces from several other games. The older woman, however, pointed at the chair adjacent to the couch that the girl was sitting in front of.

"Thanks," she replied, pulling on the boots, as the tension in the air seemed to multiply tenfold.

Richard tried to break some of the tension off, like a hard piece of candy that would break his teeth later when he chewed it. "Well…" Looking at all the glares directed at him, he decided to quit while he was ahead. That meant that he was physically whole.

Martha took pity on her son, telling the young woman, "Chicken Pox." She raised her glass of wine as she gave up hope of finding the episode that she was searching for. She left the TV on one of the local news networks for background noise.

"Huh?" Kate asked the woman, not sure if she heard her correctly. "Chicken Pox?"

"Yes, dearie," Martha indicated the answer with the glass of wine that she picked up off of the same coffee table that held the board games. "Chicken Pox. One of the boys in Alexis's class had that disease. Which, my dear, is not so kind to that segment of the population of which I have become a part of."

"Chicken Pox," Richard Castle stared at his mother in disbelief. "That's why you came back so early." At her nod, he continued, growing angrier with every second. He retorted, "Mother, you had the Chicken Pox. As did I," he pointed out in indignation. "Alexis is missing out on her school trip to D.C. because you…," seemingly at a loss of words, Castle stopped, staring incredulously at his mother.

"Oh Richard," pooh-poohed his mother. "You know very well that I do not deal well with sickness." She dismissed his angry look with a wave of her not-so-full anymore glass of red wine.

"It was just the Washington Monument, Dad," Alexis tried to calm down her father. She had never seen him this angry before, not even when they left her alone for Cinco De Mayo and found lime shards embedded in the walls.

"Yeah, it's really nothing special," chimed in Kate. She looked at the players in the scene before her. She wasn't sure if she should continue, but since she'd already added her two cents, she might as well through in the whole dollar. "My class got stuck at the top of the monument."

"Stuck?" questioned the girl, momentarily forgetting her own anger at the woman's presence in face of this new fact.

"The elevator broke down," Kate told the girl. "2.237 steps to the bottom. That's a number that I'm going to remember on my death bed." She tried a smile at the girl, hoping that she'd accept as an offer, if not of friendship, at least of both finding themselves in the same uneasy situation.

"Seriously?" the girl asked, giving her at least a small smile.

"Seriously." Kate grinned at the, if not welcome, at least memorable trip to the nation's capital

"Did you get to go to the Smithsonian as well?" asked the girl, shyly.

"Mother," whispered Rick harshly. "The Smithsonian?" His mother seemed to ignore her son's indignation on behalf of his daughter.

"Yeah, we did," Kate continued. "The girls wanted to see the dresses, the boys wanted to see some car expo," she remembered fondly.

"And where were you?" asked the girl, wondering if the woman in front of her went to see the dresses or the cars.

Pausing in her reply as she remembered what she ended up doing, Kate didn't answer right away. Finally settling on an answer, she replied slowly, "You know, I think that I've contributed enough to the delinquency of a minor today." She finished putting on her boots and stood in front of the girl and her grandmother, who seemed to be enthralled in the local news station's noon news report.

Rick looked up at that answer, a grin on his face as he compared it to other answers that he'd given his daughter. He seemed about to say something when his mother interrupted him.

"I don't even know why we came back so early," she waved the glass of red wine in front her, taking a big gulp as she stared at the screen. "Not if this is what we're coming back to." She indicated with her glass, almost empty, at the screen. The screen showed a reporter, using yellow crime scene tape as a background for her shot. "Another murder in the Reservoir Park."

The TV crew had done their job correctly. They panned the scene as the reporter continued on. They had a perfect shot of the body, flanked by a Hispanic-looking man with a gold shield on his belt, an African-American woman doing something to the corpse, and a Caucasian man, leaving the body, holding a reporter's notebook.

The scene transfixed the women of the Castle household, and even held the attention of the only male in the household since his mother's latest divorce. It also seemed to have special significance to the other woman currently in the Castle household.

She got on the phone right away, drawing the attention of the rest of the members of the household in front of her.

"Esposito!" she barked out. "Get those reporters back another 100 feet. They're shooting the body."

As the members of the Castle household swiveled their heads between the woman in front of them (who was she?) and the Hispanic-looking male detective on the screen in front of them, they watching in clear fascination as he barked out some orders of his own to the officers. They watched as the reporter was suddenly moved back, exactly 100 feet.

Their mouths dropped out, comedy-style, as the other woman in their household continued to bark orders into the cell phone cupped in her hand. "Give me to Dr. Parish before you make sure that those officers have dealt with the reporters correctly. I don't want to hear about any sort of complaints from the media."

The woman looked around at her surroundings while waiting for the detective to hand her off to Lania, a.k.a. Dr. Parish, her friend on duty and off. Back in the Castle household, the stranger seemed to be looking for something. "Dr. Parish, hold on." She cupped her hand over the receiver, "I had a bag," she asked the room at large.

Alexis pointed near the counter, where the pile of luggage from their trip to D.C. remained.

Kate moved quickly, "Hey Dr. Parish, can you give me anything about the body before I get there?" She pulled the black gym back out of the pile, settling it on the stool in front of her.

"You're a cop!" exclaimed Castle in surprise.

"Shhh!" Kate stopped rummaging in her bag to put her hand back over the receiver and deliver a whispered warning to the man to shut up.

It was no use, as the entire household could hear a surprised voice exclaim, "You have company? Man company?"

Kate sighed, glaring at the man who'd broken her cover. "No, that was just the TV."

"Right," the household could hear as a response in the spunky voice they heard from the cell phone.

Kate sighed, and straightened up, glancing at the news report as she did. "Lanie, they have you smiling over a corpse on the TV."

There was a pause.

"I'm a gonna kill them."

Kate sighed and bent back down over her bag, calming down her friend by telling her, "No, you can't do that. Because you'll just have more work to do." She finally found what she'd been looking for, as the entire household watched as she clipped a gold shield to her belt.

Alexis looked delighted at the turn of events. From finding out that the woman had a brain, and possibly cool stories to tell from what she'd heard about the woman's own trip to D.C. as a youngster, she'd moved to being surprised that she was a cop; to absolutely delighted that the woman was decidedly _not_ thrilled at being linked with her father. Richard Castle, on the other, was not so thrilled himself. For different reasons, of course.

"Lanie!" Kate finally exclaimed in exasperation. "Yeah, I'll tell you about it later." The woman spared another glance at the man standing in front of her, a mulish look on his face at not being the one to be embarrassed about their liaison. She ignored him, "Can you tell me anything? T.O.D? C.O.D.?" She stood up straight as she got responses to her questions. "What do you mean he O.D'd?" Forgetting her surroundings, she told the other person on the line, "That's not his M.O." She hung up quickly at whatever the response was from the woman on the other side of the phone line connection.

Facing the now-different scene in front of her, she still was unsure of what to say. She decided to try short and sweet.

"I have to go," she told the group. She slung the gym bag over the shoulder, intending to add her handcuffs and service weapon to her belt as soon as she left.

"Wait," Castle stopped her.

'What now?' she wondered.

"I'll come with you." Richard looked excited at the thought. Accompanying a cop on her duty. A hot cop at that.

'What?' she thought. Her expression echoed her incredulous thoughts.

"Yeah, it'll be great. For research purposes." He didn't notice the expression on her face nor on the faces of his daughter and mother. He ran towards his bedroom, throwing back, "Wait for me. I'll just grab my shoes."

Kate remained glued to the floor. 'He wasn't really considering following her around, to a corpse, was he?' she questioned silently.

"And notebook," he called over his shoulder as he entered the room to her left.

Alexis could read her expression perfectly, however. Offering up a, "He's serious," she waited to see what the strange woman, whom she'd come to almost like, would do. Kate didn't disappoint.

She sprinted for the door. Telling the two women remaining in the living room, "Just…" she realized that she was at a loss of words. "I'm sorry," she told the women sincerely. "Thanks…for everything," finished, before closing the door quietly (so that the writer wouldn't hear her) and heading quickly down the hall.

Richard exited his room at that exact moment, bearing his shoes and a reporter's notebook. Glancing around the room, he wondered, "Hey, where'd she go?" Looking disappointed for a second, he made to open the door to the apartment. His daughter stopped him.

"Dad," she told him. "No."

Her father looked even more disappointed at this turn of events. "But.."

"No, Dad, you do not get to follow your one-night-stand to a crime scene." She stood, using all of her height to emphasize her refusal to allow him to follow the woman.

He sighed, shuffling his feet back to where they had been playing before the woman interrupted their lives.


	5. His Study

Disclaimer: In first part.

For all those who are reading this, I added a scene to the last chapter. It's not vital to the story, but I liked it in my head. Thanks!

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Two days after the surprise houseguest to the Castle household, the phone rang. Castle, writing in his study, picked up, his mind still centered on the fictional movements of his new character.

"Hello, Casa Castle here. There are no aliens hiding under our beds, except for the squiggly one that we've decided to name Earl." He waited to see if there was a response. Human telemarketers usually remained stunned long enough for him to decide if it was worth it to talk crazy at them; machine ones were usually harder to deal with, but no less satisfying to hang up on.

"Rick?" A feminine voice questioned.

He removed his feet from the ottoman in front of him, placing them on the ground as he tried to remember the face that went with that voice. "Yes," he said, trying to stall until he could remember the name, "This is he."

"It's Kate," the voice continued, pausing for some sign of recognition by the other person on the line.

"Hello Kate," Richard stalled some more. "It's been awhile hasn't it?" he asked her as he furiously worked his memory through all the recent and not-so-recent women that he had 'dated.'

The voice remained silent on the other end.

"Hello?" he tried again.

"It's been two days," she replied testily, the tone in her voice testifying to the annoyance that she felt at being forgotten so quickly. "Less than actually."

"Oops," Richard said, hoping his sheepish grin telegraphed over the phone the same way that her annoyance did.

She sighed. Kate really shouldn't have been surprised, actually. 'I mean, who knew how many women Richard Castle brought home in a week,' she thought silently.

"So, what can I do for you?" Richard asked with baited breath. She couldn't be pregnant yet, could she? He froze at the thought, hardly breathing until her next words released him from his prison.

"You can tell me that you found my ring," said Kate. She waited for a response, not getting one before continuing, "It was on a gold chain." She continued with the details, hoping that one would spark a memory in the writer who couldn't be bothered to remember her name. "It's gold, as well. I had it in the café, where we met," she offered, helping him place her in case he forgot that. Another time, she might've let him scramble to remember her, letting the feeling of being so forgettable drive to never have a one-night stand again. However with the sole possession of her mother's that she owned, she couldn't afford to be malicious to the man. She waited for an answer, hopefully in the affirmative.

The ring had been her mother's and the one true possession of hers that she cherished. She didn't always wear it, but when she did, she could feel her mother's presence around her. She couldn't believe it when she got home the other night that it'd been missing. She thought back to when she had it last. Realizing that it had been on her birthday, she remembered that she removed at Castle's place, not wanting it on during her one-night stand with the famous author.

"Your ring? On a chain" asked Castle cautiously. 'How very…classic,' he thought. 'Maudlin maybe, if the previous owner was dead. Or maybe it was just a reminder of a lost love,' he mused some more.

"On a chain," she repeated.

He thought back to her wearing a ring on a chain around her neck. She'd removed it before they'd gotten seriously started, putting it on his bedside table along with the man's watch that she wore. "You took it off, didn't you?"

"Yes, and in my haste to leave the next morning, I left without it." She tapped her pen on the desk.

"Oh, really," Richard grinned. "You left it behind?" he asked her in a seduction tone. "Just left it behind, huh?" he asked her again.

"Yes," she confirmed again. 'What was up with him?'

"No reason to leave something like that behind is there?" he continued to question her. "Not unless," he dropped his tone even more seductively, "You wanted to see me again."

"What!" she exclaimed, startled at what he was implying. Angrily, she told him, "No, I did not leave my mother's ring at your place so that I had an excuse to see you again!" 'Of all the self-centered, egotistical men,' she thought, wrapped in a fury that had as much to do with anger at herself for losing her mother's ring after a one-night stand as it had to do with the man currently asking her if she purposely left it behind for what, a quickie?

"Really?" he tried again, sure that she was just playing a little hard to get.

She screamed at him over the phone, "No!"

"Really?" he asked, confused and a little embarrassed.

"Sure, Rick," she tried sarcasm at the writer, hoping that it would pierce the self-centric bubble of egotism that surrounded the writer. "I definitely wanted a repeat of that scene in the morning – the one where I met your teenage daughter and mother on my walk of shame." She hoped that she got through to him with that one. The embarrassment of walking into that living room, facing the obviously upset teenage daughter and the mother of the man that she'd had a short fling with was one of her worst memories of mornings after sex.

"Oh," he remembered quietly. "Yeah, I guess that wasn't one of my best wake-up calls," he said sheepishly.

She made a noise of agreement.

"So, the ring, huh?" he confirmed, "On a chain?"

"Yeah, a ring on a chain."

"And the book of course?" he reminded her. She had left her copy of Storm Fall as well.

"What?" she asked the writer.

"Storm Fall," he reminded her some more, dropping his tone as he added, "That I signed for you." He grinned, hoping that that telegraphed over the line as well.

She rolled her eyes and bit her lip at that memory, before replying, "I guess so."

Alexis chose that moment to walk in to her dad's study. "Dad? What's going on?" She wondered at his smirk.

Rick smiled uneasily in his daughter's direction, a little unsure of how to explain the situation to her. Cupping the receiver on the phone, in case his daughter had a few choice words to say about his guest from the other night, he decided on the truth.

"Kate – you remember Kate, from a few days ago," he related in a light tone, trying to keep the situation getting any worse. "Well, she lost her ring here." At his daughter's exasperated look, with him and the situation, he told her, "It's her mother's ring, and she really wants it back. You haven't seen it have you?"

"Yeah, Marie found it," Alexis recounted their cleaning lady finding a ring on a chain between her father's bedside table and the bed. "Gram said that it was hers," she related with an intolerant smile at the thought of her grandmother claiming the lost piece of jewelry as though she owned it. 'Was she the only grown-up in the family?,' she wondered.

"Oh," Richard rolled his eyes. "Kate, you still there? Yeah, my mother has it." He could hear a sigh of relief over the phone, giving credence to her story that her ring wasn't a 'leave-behind.' "Did you want to come by later on tonight?" he offered.

"Yeah, I'll try," Kate countered. "Work's a little crazy right now."

"New body?" Richard asked, almost gleefully.

Kate was taken aback by how much joy was in his voice. "No, Mr. Castle, no one else has been brutally murdered today." Her frosty tone echoed the disapproval in her words. She couldn't believe that she slept with him. That she liked his books!

"Dad?!?" admonished his daughter in surprise. "You can't just…" she couldn't believe her father had asked someone if another murdered body had been found. Happily! She grabbed the phone out of his hands. "Ms…uhm…Kate?" she tried, not sure what to call the woman since she didn't know her last name.

"Yeah?" Kate said, surprised to hear a teenager on the line. Was she going to yell at her for sleeping with her father?

"Ignore my dad. He's a little over-enthused at the idea of murder." She tried to mitigate how that sounded by telling the woman, "You know, bad habit of writing mystery novels. You spend all day trying to think of ways to off people." She stopped there, unsure of how to proceed.

"Okay," Kate replied, a little unsure herself. 'No more one-night stands,' she promised herself, 'Ever.'

Kate tried to think of what else to tell the daughter of the man that she had a one-night stand with. 'D.C.!' she thought. "Do you think that you'll get a chance to go back to D.C. sometime soon," she asked warily, unsure of how the question would be taken. Would the girl decide that she was butting in where she didn't belong? Did she have the right to ask these questions?

"Oh," Alexis sounded surprised that she remembered. "Yeah, Dad'll take me one day," she told the detective. Alexis looked over at her father, who raised an eyebrow at his daughter. "He owes me," she replied to the other woman. She rolled her eyes at her dad's instantly contrite face.

"Oh," Kate said in a small voice. She was, after all, the reason that Rick owed his daughter a trip in the first place.

"Anyway," Alexis continued, forgetting that the other woman on the line was the reason her father was currently slouching his shoulders and hiding his face behind the screen of his laptop, "I asked my friends from school about the Washington Monument and the Smithsonian Museums."

"Yeah," Kate said, surprised that Alexis was being so nice to her. "What did they say?" she wondered.

"That the Washington Monument was nice, blah blah blah, but kind of boring," she related. "And that all of the girls wanted to see the First Lady gowns at the Smithsonian."

"And the boys?" Kate asked, smiling.

"No one knew where they went. At least my friends didn't, since they're all girls." Alexis told her, shrugging her shoulders. She grinned suddenly, "Oh! And one couple got caught making out in the replica of Julia Child's kitchen."

"You're kidding," Kate squealed over the phone, feeling like a gossipy teenager again.

"Hey, you didn't tell me that," Kate could hear Rick's voice over the phone, indignant that his daughter had kept this information from him, but not from his 'date.'

"On a school trip?" Kate asked, a grin spreading over her face.

"Yeah, totally." Alexis related to the woman, happy for some reason that she had someone to share this with.

"Why Julia Child's kitchen?" she asked the young girl.

"Because they said that they didn't think anyone would want to go there," Alexis explained, indignant at the answer the couple had spread around. "They said she was just a cookbook author and why would anyone care?" She shook her head at the thought of one of the foremost and famous cooks in the world being described as just a 'cookbook author.'

"Philistines," described Kate of the classmates' explanation. "Don't they know what she represents? Didn't they see the movie or read her book? I mean she…"

"I know," Alexis confirmed, sitting on the footstool recently vacated of her father's feet.

There was silence on the line for a minute, as both people were caught up in their thoughts.

"Anyway," Alexis began, "I should really be getting back to my schoolwork." She was reluctant to hang up the phone though.

"Yeah, I have some stuff to do here too." Kate replied. She turned to face a detective coming her way. "Hold on for a second, will you?" She put the girl on hold.

"Okay," Alexis said patiently waiting for Kate to pick up again. She looked at her dad's face. Giving him a 'what' look, she leaned back on the footstool, tapping her foot as she waited for the detective to get back on the line.

"Look, Alexis, something came up, okay," Kate told her shortly, "I'm going to have to go…what do you mean, you don't know where he is, Ryan?"

Alexis could hear some noises in the background, through the hand that Kate had obviously put over the receiver. Alexis shrugged at her dad, unsure of what to do next. "Kate?" she asked again, "Kate?"

Her father took the phone from her, listening to the mumbled sounds coming out of the receiver.

Alexis took the phone back, putting it on speaker, letting the both of them hear what was going on.

"Yeah Alexis, I…" she tried again, before being cut off.

There were some sounds in the background, louder now. Rick and Alexis could hear scraping of metal against metal, doors slamming shut, someone running up to a place near where the phone was.

"What Esposito?" Kate asked the other person.

"Hey we got him!" A man called out.

Now there was no hand over the phone, as Kate obviously found something else to do with her hand that was more important than holding the sounds at bay from her phone partner.

"Call ESU, have us meet them there! Find out if he's alone or if there are hostages there as well! And get SWAT ready. Now!" she yelled at somebody at her end of the line.

"Alexis," Kate rushed to get off the phone, "I've got to go sweetie," the endearment popped out. "I'll talk to you later." She hung up the phone without saying goodbye.

Kate disconnected the line, leaving a bad taste and a buzz at the other end of it.

The other members of the conversation remained sitting down. Not wanting to end the line on their side, as if doing so meant the end of the woman that they had just been talking to, they stayed that way for a few minutes. Finally, Alexis turned the phone off.

"Dad?" Is she going to be okay?" Alexis asked worriedly. She knew that her dad knew no more than she did, but it would still be a comfort for him to tell her that yes, the woman would be okay.

Rick held his daughter in his arms, kissing the top of her head.


	6. His Apartment 3

A/N: Disclaimer in first part.

Kate had survived whatever it was that she had done. They hadn't gotten the guy then, as the news reported the next day. Or the day after. She continued to call though, to make sure that they still had her mother's ring. She'd get Alexis most of the time, reassuring the girl that yes, they took all precautions to ensure their safety. She offered to show the girl her bulletproof vest even. Once things calmed down, of course.

She'd also talked to Rick, whose tone of voice turned quite serious at the thought of the woman putting herself in danger to catch a guy who had already murdered so many people. Then he turned the voice around, asking like a little boy if she kept calling because she liked him. Liked his cooties, even. She'd sigh over these conversations, but always hung up the phone with a little smile on her face.

Once she'd even talked to Rick's mother. Martha had assured her that the ring was well taken care of; Alexis had put it in a safe place. She'd also regaled the detective of her own interaction with the police, a major role on NYPD Blue, although the woman thought it sounded more like she had played a crazy homeless lady on one episode.

A few days later, the new reports were all about the capture of the Reservoir Murderer. They mentioned a Detective Kate Beckett heading the investigation, earning a few shouts of glee in the Castle household. The news reports showed the brunette detective, in her bulletproof vest as she escorted the prisoner to the back of a police black-and-white patrol car. She turned to issue orders to the other cops around her when the shot cut back to the well-dressed reporter holding a microphone to her brightly lipsticked lips.

"Boo!" yelled Alexis at the screen of the TV. She grinned as she turned back around, catching a look on her father's face. He was standing on the other side of the counter, wrapping a slice of turkey in a piece of flatbread for his dinner.

"What?" asked Alexis.

"Nothing," Rick told her.

She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Okay," Rick put aside the food that he was dealing with. "It just seems to me that you're getting a little…" he searched for the right word, "Close… to a woman that you hardly know."

She rolled her eyes. "Dad, she's not one of your bimbos."

He looked at her. "Do you remember how you know her?"

"Yeah, Dad, I do, and thanks for bring that up again." She picked at the turkey sub on her plate, thinking of the woman's "walk-of-shame" the next morning.

"I'm sorry sweetie," her dad tried to comfort her. "I'm just worried that, after she picks up her things, she might not want to call here anymore." He tried to lessen the impact that his statement had on his daughter. "Not because you aren't the best thing in my world," he told her, earning a smile on his daughter's lips.

"I know," she sighed, still picking at the food on her plate. "It's just that… I thought that we connected, you know," she told her father, embarrassed that she felt some sort of connection to a woman that she hadn't met under the best of circumstances. "We talked about museums and stuff, and Boston, where she went to college, and school." She smiled as she told her father, "She just seems cool, you know."

"I know," Rick told her. Once again, he thought about the fact his daughter would look up to a woman that she'd met once more than her mother, an actress who's infrequent phone calls and surprised trips did nothing to lessen the impact that not having a mother around had on her daughter. Or her daughter's need for a stable maternal figure in her life. A few years ago, Rick thought that marrying a high-powered professional woman would give his daughter someone to look up to.

'Big mistake,' he mused as he thought about his second ex-wife. A publisher with no time for 'playing mommy,' as she had called it during one fight with him, and the last night that she had spent in his loft with the two of them. Divorce proceedings started the next day. Shaking his head, he tried to focus on his daughter's words.

"Do you think that she'll come by to pick up the ring tonight?" Alexis asked, a tone in her voice suggesting that she might cancel her plans with Paige if she wanted to see the young woman the ring belonged to again.

"I don't know sweetie," Rick answered honestly. He leaned over the counter to her, "And before you ask, you are not canceling your plans because she might come over tonight." He threw down the hand towel that he'd been wiping his hands on. "Besides, I hear Paige's brother got back from military school." He walked around the counter to sit next to his daughter. "And you don't want to miss that. Boys, confined to a place," he gasped, "Without girls!" He shrieked in mock horror. "Think of the stories that he has to tell." He grinned at his daughter again.

"Okay," she told him reluctantly, taking a big bite of the sandwich before sliding off the stool to get her stuff.

Rick looked at his daughter with a smile that dimmed as soon as she was in her room. He remained worried at the too close relationship that his daughter had with a woman that he'd only met once himself. Enough so that he'd called up his old friend, the mayor, to ask around about her, Detective Kate Beckett. He'd told the mayor that it was for research purposes.

"A new character," he told the man, "Strong, independent female investigator. Heard her name on the news and wanted to know if she'd fit the part."

The mayor had gotten back to him in an hour. "She's tough, smart, savvy, strong," Bob told him. "Want to get an interview with her?" he'd asked.

"Not right now. That's okay. Thanks," Rick had told him. That seemed to put things in order. Smart, strong, and sexy, he added that last characteristic to himself with a smile. Maybe he would base a book on her. He'd already started writing the rough draft of one.

Alexis dropped down the stairs with a large thump! interrupting his thoughts. Her overnight bag slung over her shoulder, she gave her dad a big hug, telling him to be good. She kissed him goodnight and left, the door swinging shut behind her exuberant dash to the elevator and her friend's sleepover.

Rick smiled at the small tornado that had come and gone. He sat down to his cold turkey wrap, sighing as the thought of spending the night alone. He wasn't alone for too long though when someone rang the doorbell. Wiping his mouth, he stood up.

"Kate," he said, surprised at the appearance of the woman on the other side of the door.

"Hey," she replied unsteadily. She gave him a shaky smile and told him "I thought that I'd take a chance that you were home."

"Oh, yeah," Rick replied, momentarily startled at her presence. He motioned her into the loft. His thoughts ran over themselves as they passed through his mind. Should he talk to her about her relationship with Alexis? Should he just give her the stuff and let it go as though that would be the end of their relationship? Is it the end of whatever relationship they had, one one-night-stand and missed rings, a few phone calls and some talks about colleges with his daughter?

"Um," he looked around for the glass bowl on top of the counter with the chain in it. Alexis had left it there in the whirlwind of her departure. "Just in case," she told him, telling him not to eat it. They didn't want to have to go back to the doctor for that again, she reminded him jokingly. "Here it is," he told the woman.

Kate examined it, making sure that it didn't have any damage to it before slipping it on her head. "Thanks, Rick." She turned and headed toward the door.

"Wait," Rick stopped her.

The woman stopped before she took two steps away from him. "What?" she asked him warily. The last time that he'd asked her to wait for him had been because he had wanted to accompany her to a crime scene.

"Your book," he told her, flourishing her copy of the book that had started their relationship. Or whatever you would call it. "With the inscription," he smirked at the memory.

She thanked him for it, startled at the electricity between them when their fingers touched as he handed off the book to her. She flipped open the first page to make sure that it was her copy.

"Kate, Have more fun in life. Richard Castle." She read off the inscription, rolling her eyes.

"It worked." He smirked at her.

"Yeah, it did," she related to the man.

Rick's smirk dropped away as he looked over the woman, not liking what he saw. She looked exhausted; like she hadn't had a decent meal or slept in days. She probably hadn't, he realized. "Hey," he asked her, "Are you okay?"

She looked up, surprised at the question. "Yeah, I'm fine." She yawned. "Just need a few hours of sleep and I'll be at it in the morning," she smiled softly. "Paperwork," she explained.

"Yeah," he answered, not convinced.

"There's always paperwork at the end of a case, especially if you actually catch the guy." She smiled again, brighter this time.

He smiled back. "Are you sure that you don't want to stay?" he offered, "Have a glass of wine, some food?" He worried over her, like he would his own daughter. She looked exhausted and over-worked and under-paid. The quintessential civil servant, he thought, who just happened to get shot at for a living.

"Yeah, I'm sure. Thanks for the offer, though," she replied.

"So what does a detective do when they solve a big murder case," he wondered, stalling the moment when she'd have to go.

"Well, I know that some of the guys are at a bar right now," she explained with another yawn. The lack of sleep was really catching up to her she realized. "But Ryan is home with his new girlfriend, I think. Esposito is probably at his mother's birthday party. A day late, though." She dimmed her smile at the thought of one of her detectives, close in the only way that cops can be after spending years of 12-hour shifts and being shot at together, missing his mother's birthday because of a case. She shook her head at the thought. That's why I'm not married or with a kid, she decided, besides the obvious fact that there isn't a guy that I'd want to have a kid with anyway.

"And you?" Rick questioned again, shaking the detective out of her thoughts.

"Me?" she thought about what she wanted to tell him. The truth, she decided. "Well, I'm partial to bubble baths and a good book," she told him, holding up the one that she currently held.

"Really?" Rick couldn't stop the smile from spreading across his face.

Rolling her eyes at his obvious glee from her disclosure, she told him, "Really. And now I have to get going, before I become another 'guest' for the night." She smiled at him. "Thanks, Rick," she told him meaning more than just giving her back her mother's ring and her book.

"You're welcome," he replied, meaning more than just giving her back her mother's ring and her book.

"I should get going now." She motioned toward the front door and began walking towards it.

He followed her, opening the door when they reached it to allow her to exit his loft.

She looked at him again. Like she wanted to say something, he thought. About Alexis, he wondered, about him? He leaned forward, startling her as though she thought that he would hurt her. Then she relaxed as he gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek.

They glanced at each other again, both holding the gaze of the other as they moved forward. This time their mouths met together, as if searching for the other had been their whole life's goal up to this point in time. She moaned as she dropped the book in her arms, pulling his head down against her mouth even further. She moved her mouth against his, while he grabbed the small of her back, pushing her as close to him as possible.

Cops needed an outlet for themselves with all that they saw and experienced during their days on the job. Some couldn't sleep, spending the days and nights off in front of the TV, losing themselves in someone else's problems or sports. Some pushed aside their memories in the gym, another lap or another few shots at the bag to forget. Some chose alcohol to forget the memory of a dead child, or an elderly couple that didn't have to die if only they'd gotten there sooner. She usually chose a good book. Castle's books, actually, to immerse her in its problem du jour, always assured of a happy ending.

But she'd never tried to get lost in another person, though. Another mouth, another kiss, another act of intimacy always seemed to tear at her heart more than putting it back together again. But this… This seemed right, she thought, as she pulled herself up to his height by sheer force of will and strong arms, made stronger by her own hours in the gym.

The heat in their kiss seemed to steam up the air. He walked backwards into the loft, pulling her with him, before pushing her up against the wall next to the front door, now blessedly closed.

He pulled off her jacket, letting it drop next to the book that she'd let go of with the first kiss.

She pulled back, out of breath, but still managing to get out, "Alexis?"

He stopped. "Sleepover," he told her, out of breath himself. "She won't be back before noon tomorrow." Before she could ask, he offered, "And mother is out on a date. She won't be back for two, three days, tops."

She seemed satisfied with that answer, pulling him back down for another kiss.

They managed to get to his bedroom door, not relinquishing the other's mouth as they removed their clothes.

A/N: I shortened the last scene for two reasons: One: the quote that I used, mainly "Fire doesn't burn fire" usually refers to a conversation between two great rabbis. I just didn't think that it was appropriate to use it in an almost-smut fanfic. Two: Yeah, I thought two reasons sounded better than one bad case of guilt.


	7. His Apartment 4, The Elevator, The Lobby

A/N: Disclaimer in first part

----------------

The scene replayed itself in much the same way that it had the last time that Kate had slept over at the Castle residence.

She was still asleep, from exhaustion and from the previous night's 'activities,' when Rick woke up the next morning. Deciding that he'd finally get a chance to unveil his perfect breakfast tray, he stumbled out of bed, into boxers, and into the living room, intent on reaching the kitchen to achieve his goal: breakfast and sex.

Unfortunately, the scene also managed to play out in the same way that it had the last time: with Alexis and Martha entering the door at the same time.

"Hey, Dad," Alexis stifled a giggle at how helpless he looked, dressed only in boxers and still half-asleep. Martha crossed the room to her son, giving him an air kiss and a "Hello, Darling," that showed that she'd gotten some luck herself the night before.

He closed his eyes, silently wishing that the floor would just open and swallow him.

"Hey, guys," he put on a tight smile. "You're home, early. Both of you. Again." He tried to unclench his chin from the top of his mouth, to no success. He was going to be murdered by his daughter. With help from his mother, probably. She did eye his wine collection a little too freely lately.

Kate entered the living room, fully dressed, tucking in her shirt to her pants. 'And scene complete,' Rick thought, as the room ground to a halt. 'Floor,' he ordered, 'Open. Now.' He felt as though he were naked in front of his high school class again. Not too far off the truth in some respects, actually, as he glanced down at his boxers, the only stitch of clothing that he had on.

"Kate?" Alexis questioned, in a surprised tone. Her look of confusion quickly turned into one of anger. She glanced back at her dad, whose look of contriteness did nothing to settle the cold pit in the bottom of her stomach rising up and becoming a full-fledged fire of anger. "How could you?" Alexis asked, in a betrayed tone. Her hurt eyes conveyed all the emotion that she was feeling: betrayed, used, tossed aside for her father. Again.

"Alexis," Kate started, but didn't know where to go from there. She'd been talking to the teenager for a couple of days, about boys, schoolwork, where to go for college. And then for her to come in just to see her in a compromising position with her father, Kate knew that she couldn't say anything to cover the things that she had done wrong.

"I'm sorry," Kate said again, before grabbing her leather jacket on the floor and heading for the door, intending to leave the Castle residence once and for all.

"Did you get your necklace?" Alexis couldn't help asking. "Your mother's precious ring? Was that just a lie, too?"

"Alexis," Rick tried to reprimand his daughter.

"It wasn't a lie," Kate talked to the door, unable to face the Castle household.

"Really," Alexis stood back, arms crossed, ignoring her dad. "Is she dead? Did she die awfully, like in a car accident or something? And it's the only thing that you have to remember her by?"

"Alexis!" Her dad tried to tell his daughter to back off. But Kate spoke before he could say anything more.

"My mother was stabbed to death in an alleyway on the way to meet me and my dad for dinner." Kate had turned around at the word "dead" uttered by the child's lips. Her eyes blazed in anger and indignation. She couldn't let her mother's reputation be tarnished, not even by an angry teenager who had every right to be angry at her. But her mom wasn't around to defend herself. Kate had to do it for her.

"We were all supposed to go to dinner, my mom, my dad and I," she locked eyes with the teenage girl. Alexis's mouth stayed open, whether to dispute what she was going to say or because she remained in shock at the story falling from her lips, Kate didn't care either way. She had her mother to fight for. "She didn't show. When we got back to the apartment, there was a detective there," her voice faltered as she lost eye contact with the girl, focusing on the high ceilings in the loft. "A Detective Raglin." She locked eyes with the girl again, focusing on the blue irises in the startled eyes. She tried to transmit something to the girl: the loneliness of losing a mother, the fact that she would never use her mother for a one-night stand, she didn't know. But she did know that she had to tell this to the girl standing in front of her. She didn't want Alexis to think that she had been used to get at her father, which she knew that the girl must be thinking. Kate didn't want to think how many times in the past she had been used for just that purpose. She had to tell her. "It wasn't a mugging, her purse, her keys, they were all there. They attributed it to gang violence. They never caught the murderer. And that's why I became a cop," the last part was unnecessary in her opinion, but she felt that she had to say it anyhow. She turned quickly, and silently slipped through the open door. Leaving behind three speechless people.

Alexis was the first one to move. She turned to her dad only to find him still staring at the door. "Dad?" she asked, wondering if what the woman said was true. The shock in his eyes told her that he didn't know. Alexis thought back to their few conversations in the past couple of days. Although they hadn't discussed anything really serious, whether to go away to college or stay in the city had been the heaviest, she'd been impressed with what the woman had told her. She hadn't asked about her dad at all. Not what he was doing, whether he was there. She hadn't even asked to speak to him when Alexis picked up the first time; just to make sure that her ring was still there.

Alexis turned back to the front door. Grabbing the knob with her hand, she yanked the door open, getting another "Alexis" from her dad as he tried to follow her. She rushed down the hall towards the elevator, catching up as the doors to the elevator began to shut on the back of the woman entering. She stuck her hands in between the doors, trusting that they wouldn't crush her arm, but not caring so long as she got to the woman in the elevator.

Opening at the intrusion, the doors beeped and revealed a woman with teary eyes and a strong back. Surprised at the girl in front of her, she was even more shocked when the girl grabbed her in a tight hug only children can give, trusting that the hug will always be returned. Kate hadn't been hugged like that since she was a child. After turning thirteen and getting her first proper kiss from a boy, she'd decided that she was too old for hugs from her parents.

Alexis grabbed tight to the woman, afraid that she'd be pushed away, realizing that the woman was shaking slightly, trying to get herself under control. And failing, Kate realized. She would have been able to stop tearing up if she was at the precinct or at home, only the hug of the child couldn't let her pull herself back into herself again. Regain control of her emotions so that nothing could pierce itself through her heart again. So that nothing could hurt her again. But the hug of the girl stopped that. She grabbed ahold of the girl, first to steady herself from the impact of the blow, then to just continue holding on. Breathing in the innocent scent of floral shampoo and popular lipgloss brought Kate back to her own teenagerhood, when she had two parents who loved her and the only thing wrong was that she had a crush on a boy that didn't know that she existed. She held on, the only way that she knew how: with everything that she had.

She held on with everything until they got to the bottom of the apartment building. Seeing the elevator doors open, she tried to disentangle herself from the girl, only to find the girl holding tighter to her. She looked down at the red hair across her shoulder, then pushed the button for the penthouse again. "It's okay," she comforted the girl, knowing that she had no right to say those words to the girl since she was the cause of everything that had happened to her.

"It's okay," she repeated as the elevator doors opened again, this time revealing Rick and Martha waiting in the hallway for them. The relief shown in their eyes was palpable. Kate's eyes softened as she realized how much Rick and Martha loved the girl in her arms. And then she realized that Rick was still in his boxers in the middle of a public hallway. She stiffened at that realization, warning the girl in her arms that something had changed.

Alexis lifted her head and turned around, seeing her dad in his boxers and nothing else. Not even socks!

"Dad!" she cried out. "Put some clothes on!" She looked at the hallway, expecting to see someone come out of their door and see her father in his boxers. And another Page Six story would be born. She buried her head in the woman's shoulder in embarrassment at her father's antics, causing a tender smile to rise on her face.

"I…" Rick began to say.

"Now, Dad," Alexis lifted her head enough off of Kate's shoulder to order.

Rick looked at the picture in front of him: his daughter clutching a woman that she barely knew and ordering him to leave. He promised that he'd have a talk with the woman as soon as possible. Find out her intentions towards his daughter before he'd let them meet again. But he sighed as he looked at how content Alexis looked on Kate's shoulder. And the way that Kate looked at Alexis. He made eye contact with Martha to stay and watch Alexis and the woman that he'd only met twice before returning to his loft to get dressed as fast as possible.

Martha looked at how content the two people in front of her were, but made sure to jump into the elevator when the doors began to close again. Hearing the doors close, Alexis removed herself from Kate's embrace, glancing at the elevator panel to see if someone had pressed a button. The doors opened on a lower level to admit two elderly people, obviously intent on going down to the lobby and leaving the building. They smiled at each other and backed up to give the requisite two feet in between the people that Manhattan elevator conduct demanded when it was available.

After reaching the level one lobby, neither Alexis nor Martha nor Kate pressed a button, content to let the elevator doors slide shut again. Alexis leaned against the side wall, glancing at Kate and Martha and the floor as they waited for something to happen. "Will you tell me about the ring,?" asked Alexis, not sure if the woman felt whole enough to tell her about it, but wanting to know about it all the same.

Kate felt for the heavy ring between the open collar of her button-down shirt, fingering it lightly before removing it from her neck. "Yeah, sure," she said as she handed it to the young girl.

"It was my great-grandmother's," she started, remembering the story that she'd been told as a child. And retold as she asked her mother to repeat it throughout the years. "She'd emigrated to England in the early 1900's and could only get work as a maid. There weren't any labor laws in the country at the time, so she only got a few hours off a week. My grandmother said that she wanted something pretty," Alexis looked at her then, to see a soft smile on Kate's face as she retold the tale. "And she chose this ring. Whenever she would get lonely or scared, she'd look at the ring and think of all of the pretty things that she would buy one day, after her family came over and she'd get married and have her own children." They grinned together at the thought of the important things in a woman's life back then. "Then she met her husband and got married, and they moved to the United States."

Alexis picked up the tale as the woman paused. "And she handed it down to your grandmother who handed it down to your mother, who handed it down to you." She raised an eyebrow to see if she was correct.

"Yeah," Kate confirmed.

"Did you mother give it to you before," Alexis wondered, then blushed at the inappropriateness of asking a question relating to someone's death.

"Um, no," Kate smiled, trying to put her at ease. "She, uh, didn't want to give it to me." Earning a questioning look from the girl, and from Martha who had been not so subtly eavesdropping on the conversation, she explained. "I was supposed to get it on my sixteenth birthday, but my mom thought that I wasn't old enough for it." She rolled her eyes at her mother's insistence that she wait two years. "Then when I turned eighteen, I was supposed to get it." She locked eyes with the teenager again, but couldn't stop the grin that came with her next words, "And then it was when I was married." She shook her head at the fact that her mother kept changing when she'd have to part with the ring.

Seeing the grin on the redheaded girl's face, Kate felt comfortable enough to continue the story past its original intention. "Yeah, marriage. My mother said that she'd give it to me on my wedding day so that I could fulfill that old bride's poem. You know," she encouraged Alexis, "the one that goes: Something old, something new; something borrowed, something blue."

"Really?" Alexis wondered.

"Yeah. She said that it was old since it was from her grandmother, but new to me; she'd give me a chain that I could wear it on for the day, but I'd have to return it later; and the stone's blue. Here," Kate tilted the ring so that the stone picked up the light, showing a dark blue, "See. All four things in one." She looked up to see Richard Castle staring at the group, not noticing that the elevator had gone up to the penthouse floor.

"That's so cool," Alexis looked at the ring in its new light, before returning it to its owner. "Hey Dad," she said as she turned around, letting Kate put the necklace back over her head. "Can we go out to breakfast?" she asked.

"Yeah, sweetie," Rick said in an overly bright voice. He looked at Kate once again, wondering if she would be joining them, not sure if he wanted her there or not.

Alexis turned towards Kate in the back of the elevator as it descended once more to the lobby level. "Kate?" she asked.

"Uh, sorry, Alexis," she gave a tight smile to the teenager, having caught the look that Rick had given her. "I've got to get back to the precinct. Finish up my paperwork before the Commissioner requests it."

"Oh," Alexis's face fell. She shrugged her shoulders, "Maybe next time," she suggested in a hopeful voice.

"Yeah," Kate gave her a small smile as the doors opened at the lobby level.

Rick stepped aside to allow his daughter and his mother to precede him. Kate stepped around him to get past when he pressed the button to close the elevator doors.

He turned to her.

"Was all of that stuff about your mother's ring true?" he questioned harshly. His protective instincts towards his daughter and his daughter's feelings were flashing red.

"Excuse me," Kate asked back, not sure if she heard the man correctly.

"Dad!" Alexis interrupted them. Rick had closed the elevator doors, but since he hadn't pressed a floor, the elevator remained at the lobby level, open to anyone who pressed the elevator button on the outside of the door.

"Sorry, Alexis," Kate stalled the girl as she pressed the penthouse level again. She turned to Richard Castle, glaring at him with such force that he shut up and began to back away as she stepped forward, stopping only when he hit the other side of the elevator.

Alexis was flabbergasted. She pressed the elevator button on other side of the wall again and again. Her grandmother took her shoulder and gently guided her away from the elevator bank.

"But, Grams…" she insisted, "I want to…"

"No," her grandmother denied in a rare forceful tone of voice. "They have some things to work out, my dear." She led the girl away towards the front doors of the building, content to watch the city as they waited for her son to come out of the elevator box. Hopefully whole, but not entirely sure that was possible.

Kate had backed Rick against the far wall without touching a single hair on his head. She then started in on him: "Listen. I lie to suspects and unwilling witnesses, okay." She told him, "I don't lie to teenage girls." She pushed her face towards his, careful not to touch him. She'd learned many things from her years on the force. How to have command presence was one of them. You couldn't hurt a suspect, but you could scare the crap out of them. Which was exactly what she was doing to Richard Castle, writer extraordinaire, playful playboy, and the overprotective father that he turned out to be. "Your daughter is an amazing young woman; how she got to be that way is a mystery to me, given your behavior over the past few days, I can only imagine," she pushed even closer to him, so that her body heat enveloped his senses, "how that happened. She's a special girl, and I would not lie to her." Finished with what she had to say, she stepped back, allowing him room to breathe. She turned away from him and pressed the first level again. She crossed her arms as she tried to hold in her anger.

"I'm sorry," he told her. "She looks up to you," he glanced at her, to gauge her reaction. He wasn't disappointed, as surprise shown in her questioning eyes as she turned to look at him. "I know you've only talked a few times," he began, "but she does. You're smart, have a professional career, and still took the time to talk to her about school and boys." He turned towards her fully, to emphasize what he was about to say next, "You can't talk to her again." He held up a hand to forestall any protest from the woman, "unless you can commit to her." Her mouth opened, but she wasn't able to say anything before he finished. "Because you can't just enter her life and leave it on a whim. She can't handle that again." He'd tried and failed to impress this fact on his previous two wives. "You can't just leave if you've inserted yourself into her life." He let his arms drop to his side as he waited for her response.

Kate tried to process this information quickly, as the elevator would reach the lobby level in a few seconds. She closed her eyes as she tried to explain something to Rick Castle, writer and playboy and loving father. "I'm a cop, Castle." His last name slipped out as she tried to reign in her emotional side. Used to calling people by their last name on the job, it was an easy and quick way for her professional side to take over. She took a deep breath as she tried to explain what it meant to be a cop. "We joke about death all the time, because we see it Castle." She tuned to look at the man. "We know that when we walk through those doors every day Castle, we might not be coming back." She looked for the realization in his eyes. "I can't commit to anything Castle because I don't know if I'm going to be there at the end of the day." And she couldn't do that to the girl who'd given her the best hug that she'd had since her parents had both been living.

The elevator reached the lobby, opening its doors once again onto the marble floors of his upscale apartment building. Spotting the two red-heads, two generations apart, Kate stepped out of the elevator, only to get pulled back in by a man's hand on her arm.

"What? Castle!" she called in surprise as the writer, having learned his lesson, pressed the penthouse floor again.

"Tell me about the man's watch," he requested, looking, to Kate at least, as if he'd taken leave of his senses.

"What?" she asked, not sure if anyone in this family was all there except for Alexis.

"Tell me about the man's watch." He requested again.

"I…" Kate couldn't, wouldn't explain what the watch meant to her as she looked at the man in front of her. She'd already given so much of herself to this family that she worried there wouldn't be enough of her left to give to herself. Her mother's voice called to her, "You can't run out of love, honey," as she closed her eyes and began to tell.

"It's my dad's," she began, unsure why she was telling something so private to a man that would probably write it into his books. She closed her eyes tighter as that thought entered her brain. "He didn't handle her death well." She opened her eyes for the next part as she wet her lips, "He's sober now. Six years." she smiled, both sad at her dad's struggle, but proud of the outcome. "The watch reminds me of the life that I saved," she pulled out the chain, "And the ring of the life that I couldn't."

She couldn't look at him anymore. Intimacy wasn't measured in the bedroom, she knew, but in moments like these. The elevator doors opened again. She pressed the lobby level once again. How many times was that today, she wondered, conjuring up a smile from who knows where. She didn't, she figured out, but it was still there all the same.

The final elevator ride was quiet; only at the end did one of them speak.

"You can call her," Rick told her, "If you want." He glanced at her, meeting her eyes. "She'd like it. And I know that you aren't using her to get to me." Kate wasn't sure that she could continue to bond to someone that she might not be around to be able to be there for. "I know that you're worried that you can't be there for her," he read her mind, "but she still likes you. And looks up to you." Kate still looked like she was going to protest, but he silenced her with, "She needs it." The elevator doors opened again.

They stepped into the lobby as he said, "Between her mother and me, I'm the more responsible of the two. If anything happened to me, I'm not sure what would happen to Alexis." He grinned sadly at her, figuring that she'd either take pity on him or Alexis.

She rolled her eyes, perfecting her years of gallows humor with, "Oh, I don't know Castle. Only the good die young." She grinned at the man stopped in the middle of the lobby, disbelief that she'd said that written all over his face. She shook her head, smiling at him with only a trace of the sadness from the past hour showing through.

She'd already joined the two redheads on the sidewalk, enjoying the rare spring day in New York when he'd finally joined them. She waved good-bye to the group, promising to call Alexis when she'd get a chance, and giving her card to the girl if she needed it. She glanced over her shoulder at the happy little family – Rick's arm around his daughter's shoulder, her leaning into his shoulder, listening as her grandmother described her date from the other night – before turning back and heading to the subway stop.

Rick glanced around, catching sight of the woman who'd slipped into their lives so comfortably and still managed to turn their lives upside down. He'd watched her walk away, the loose comfortable stroll that he'd seen on runway models as comfortable on her as her badge and gun. He probably would have continued to watch her walk away except for the painful elbow in his gut.

"Dad!"


	8. The Station

A/N: Disclaimer in first part. Spoilers for 2x10.

* * *

Alexis could hear them fighting from outside the door. Opening the door to the loft, she was just in time to hear her grandmother threaten her father with a repeat of "Blackkhawk down" if the remote-controlled helicopter her father was handling got any closer to her.

Her grandmother screamed as the helicopter landed on her table, disrupting the papers that Alexis knew where her new lines for the play her grandmother was in.

"What's all this?" she questioned the room, holding a cup of hot chocolate in one hand and her recent purchases in the other.

"Official Police Tactical Training," her father answered, in a southern accent.

Martha put her head in her hands, feeling a headache brewing stronger than the coffee that she'd just finished as she prepared to spend hours reading her lines.

"Oh. Hey dad, did you get a chance to sign that permission slip that I gave you the other day," she questioned as she put her bags on the chair adjacent to where her grandmother was working.

Removing the headphone/microphone combo that he'd been using to annoy his mother, he asked his daughter, "Haven't you learned to forge my signature yet?"

"Credit cards yes, permission slips no," his daughter threw the remark back at him, causing him to glance up in suspicion.

She sighed as she explained the situation to him. "It's for my Civics class. Every student does a three-day volunteer internship at one of the city's agencies, law enforcement, sanitation, fire."

Her grandmother raised her hand, "I'll go with fire. They have the best calendars."

Unfortunately for her grandmother's art appreciation skills, Alexis told her, "I went with law enforcement. Detective Beckett already said that it's cool if I volunteer down at the station." She grinned as she used the lingo, "at the station," referring to where the detective worked.

"Oh," her father looked surprised at the mention of his, well, two-night stand. He looked down at the remote in his hand. "Are you sure that it's all right that you'll be there. I mean, she seems pretty busy." He tried to be supportive of his daughter, but he was still unsure of her relationship with Kate.

He knew that she and Alexis had talked to each other since they'd parted ways a week ago, but he didn't think that they were that close. Kate had kept it pretty superficial, he thought from Alexis's side of the conversation. He didn't know what to think of the two of them getting closer. He didn't have to be a psychologist to know that her own mother's death had left her with issues about dying after bonding with a child.

"Actually, Detective Beckett is going to give me my orientation course tomorrow morning," she smiled brightly at her dad.

"Then I would be honored to give you a ride tomorrow, or share a cab." He waited anxiously as his daughter thought over the invitation and agreed. She thought that it would be fun to be dropped off by her dad to work; it would be interesting to experience a "normal" work day with her dad, who seemed to alternate between writing for hours a day with playing around for all hours a night. Sometimes the activities were switched.

"And Detective Beckett," he wondered, as his daughter referred to the woman. "Not Kate?" he grinned unsteadily.

"Not Kate, at least not down at the precinct," Alexis referred to the conversation that she had with the woman after asking about the internship. "It's not professional."

"Hmm," was all her dad said about it.

The next morning found Castle in the kitchen, making a nutritious lunch for his little workerbee. Flipping the wrap onto the cutting board, he added cheese, meat, bean sprouts to the sandwich. He was just adding the tomato slices when his daughter arrived downstairs.

"Good news," he told her, not looking at his daughter as he folded the wrap perfectly. "I am finally embracing the lecture that you gave me on the importance of organic food." He remained with his back to his daughter as he put the whole sandwich in a container for her to take to work.

"You made my lunch," was her incredulous reply. She stopped in front of the counter separating her from her dad as he added cut fruit to a container.

Turning around, he caught sight of his daughter. He stopped and stared at her outfit. "Wow," he said in surprise, proudly smiling at his daughter. She wore black dress pants with a fuchsia-colored button down shirt. And she had added a leather jacket, with a ruffle around the edges to add a softer look to her outfit. Professional, but feminine. Her grandmother approached the scene, smiling in pride herself.

"What?" Alexis questioned her dad.

"You look so…," he searched for the right word to describe his daughter. "Grown-up," he finally told her.

"Really?" she asked her dad.

"Really," he told her confidently.

Alexis tuned to look at her grandmother. "Well Gram said presentation is vital." She grinned.

Her grandmother threw up her hands. 'What can you do,' she seemed to say to her son.

The teenager looked in her new purse. "Oh, I forgot my phone," she noticed before she ran up the stairs to retrieve it.

Martha and Rick moved closer together, taking the time Alexis was gone to talk amongst themselves.

"Well," she asked Rick.

Rick put the fruit into a paper bag as he leaned in close to his mother's face. "Don't you think that it's a little _odd_ that she's bonding so fast to a woman that she hardly knows?" he questioned his mother.

"Darling," she told her son. "What did you expect? She's a strong, independent woman. No wonder Alexis likes to talk to her so much." She rested her arms on the counter.

"But you're a strong, independent woman, Mother," he complained, "Why can't she talk to you?"

"Darling," she told him, "I'm the wrong side of forty for some of the things that Alexis wants to talk about."

He stopped rolling the paper bag. "Forty, Mother?" he raised his eyebrows.

She rolled her eyes in his direction.

Alexis soon found herself in the 12th precinct. Her dad has insisted on coming in with her, to see where she worked and to make sure that 'his little girl' was safe. And okay, because being in a police station was cool. His daughter had warned him already to act more proper. He still craned his neck in every direction since the police officer at the front desk had directed them to the floor where Detective Beckett was.

"This is so cool," Rick told his daughter in the elevator. She looked over at him sideways.

"Dad?" she warned him again.

Kate was waiting for them as the doors opened to admit them to the tenth floor of the "one-two" as her dad told her in the elevator. She closed the file that she'd been skimming; giving a smile to the teenager in the elevator that was quickly wiped off as she caught a glimpse of the man following her.

"Alexis, hi," she greeted the girl, a strange look on her face as she fully addressed the man beside her. "Mr. Castle," she decided to go with, hoping that he'd get the hint that they were in a professional setting, and that she didn't mix professional with personal. Like two-night stands with famous authors.

Kate took in the girl's blush as her dad's voice lowered into what he must have thought was a seductive tone, "Detective Beckett," he responded, fully enjoying playing bad-cop, or good-cop with her.

"Mr. Castle," she repeated, crossing her arms as she looked at him, not a trace of a smile on her face.

His own smile wiped off his face eagerly as he looked at his shoes. "I was just walking Alexis to her new volunteer internship," he told her, shuffling his feet as he felt the force of her glare.

Like a teacher, Kate managed to convey an "and" with just her eyes as she waited for a full explanation.

He smiled his puppy-dog look at her. "And make sure that she was safe." He was just being a good father, told his smile. She didn't believe it.

But she allowed him to finish there, choosing to put her arm around the girl's shoulder. Leading Alexis into the back of the maze of the station, Kate addressed the girl, telling her about the station and explaining what Kate did.

"Let me take you to where you'll be working Alexis," she told the girl after pointing out the now-empty desks where she worked next to Detectives Esposito and Ryan, leaving Rick to follow behind them.

"Okay, so this is the property room." the detective told the girl, both ignoring Rick's, "Whoa!" as he got a look at the room.

Jam packed full of stuff. There was no other way to describe it. There were little stuffed animals and nail clippers. Food wrappers and oh, gross!, somebody's…

"Mr. Castle," Kate warned the man. She glared at him again. "If you can't keep your hands to yourself, please wait outside." The detective assured the father, "There's nothing dangerous in here," before turning back around to Alexis, expecting her father to heed her advice and leave. The knock of a cane to the floor erased "follows orders," from her description of the man. She glared at the man again, forcing him to back out of the room and into the hall.

"Where we keep all of the items that we find at a crime scene that aren't classified as evidence," she walked the younger girl through the l-shaped room. Each and every shelf was packed full of stuff, in folders and case files. Boxes of envelopes and plastic bags abounded.

"Sort of like a lost and found," Alexis described the room as she followed hot on the heels of the detective.

"Um," the detective thought it over, "Sort of."

"Why don't the victim's families claim this stuff," Alexis questioned as she placed her black purse on one of the shelves.

Kate further explained, "Well, loved ones are aware of the big ticket items, like rings and watches," she explained. "But things like sunglasses and lighters, those usually go unclaimed." She turned to face the girl.

"Are these case numbers?" the girl asked, pointing to a number on a box on one of the many shelves.

"Exactly." Kate told the girl, "So the idea is to get rid of all of this stuff and stick it into storage. But before we can do that we have to catalogue it, just in case someone comes in with a claim." She pointed toward the older model computer set up in the center of the room.

The girl followed her train of thought. "Okay so you need a description of every item," she turned from the straining shelves to the computer the detective indicated, "along with its corresponding case number downloaded into the database.

"Uh huh, and I know that this isn't exactly what you imagined when you'd volunteer here, but we're low on manpower and this would be very …"

"Don't worry about it," the girl dismissed, "This is going to be so organized when I'm done with it, you won't even recognize it."

"I'll bet I won't," Kate said with a smile, as she turned to leave the room.

She was joined outside the property room by the Captain, looking for an update on their case. Finding out that the guy thrown down a trash chute had two identities and two significant others, one a wife, had made the case his highlight of the week.

He joined the detective just as she joined Rick Castle. He looked to Detective Beckett, the detective that he brought up through the ranks as a mentor, for an explanation of the man's, obviously a civilian, presence in his precinct.

Kate looked uncomfortable as she introduced, "Richard Castle, this is Captain Montgomery. Captain, this is Richard Castle," before she was interrupted by Captain Montgomery's exclamation.

"The novelist," he looked excited as he told the man, "Man, my wife just loves your books." He shook the novelist's hands exuberantly.

"That's great. I always enjoy meeting a fan." Rick's smile was brighter than a 1,000 watt bulb, as he shook the captain's hands.

Montgomery rested on his heels as he took in the sight in front of him. Richard Castle, the famous novelist, was in his precinct. For what? "So, Mr. Castle…" Captain Montgomery began, glancing between his best detective and the novelist.

Seeing where he was going with this, Rick forestalled the question, "My daughter's doing a volunteer internship for Detective Beckett," he glanced at the detective in question, smiling smugly at using the "Detective Beckett" in regards to her. She grimaced back at him.

"Oh, that's great." He joined the writer and his detective as they walked back to the main area. "You know when my son first went to summer camp, I followed the bus all the way to the Adirondacks."

Seeing a kindred spirit, Rick responded, "When Alexis started nursery school, I hid in the bushes all day to make sure that she was alright."

Thinking that they were both a little crazy, Beckett passed between the two men, remarking, "You two are both either very sweet or very creepy."

Rick grinned as she passed them.

They group reached the trio of desks usually occupied by Detectives Beckett, Esposito, and Ryan. Beckett sat down on her desktop, facing the white board that detailed her latest case as she prepared to update the Captain.

Rick sat down in the visitor's chair next to her desk. He looked at the white board, reading the descriptions of the victim and possible suspects. "Shouldn't that be EX-WIFE, not WIFE, and FIANCEE?" he commented on to the detective.

"No," Detective Beckett responded, before ignoring the novelist.

"So he was separated from his wife, and engaged, then, right?" he questioned the detective.

"No," chuckled the captain. Detective Beckett looked annoyed at the apparent friendship beginning between her Captain and her short-lived romance.

"Wait," Rick exclaimed, as he put the pieces together. "A wife and a fiancé," he crowed.

Two detectives with boxes full of stuff approached the group. They looked from the man, currently sitting in their boss's visitor's chair next to her desk, to the detective in question, to their Captain.

The Captain introduced the two detectives to, "Richard Castle. His daughter's doing a volunteer internship here."

The other detectives nodded in understanding, as the man waved to them.

"Is he going to be sitting in on the investigation," asked one of the detectives.

"No," answered Detective Beckett.

The captain looked at her, as Rick groaned, "Oh, come on." He stood up, pleading with the captain, "There's a wife and a fiancé. It's a great case for ... research." He looked to the captain for some leeway.

Detective Beckett also looked to the captain, sure that he wouldn't let a civilian novelist into the investigation.

The captain looked between the two people standing in front of him. On the one hand was his stalwart detective, obviously uncomfortable with the affable novelist. Especially considering what the captain remembered from his Page Six exploits. He half-smiled in his direction as he shook hands with the mystery novelist. "Mr. Castle, our precinct would be honored to have someone of your resonance here today. Just ask the detective for any help that you might need." He turned around at the shock on his detectives faces. "Let's give this... friend of the mayor some help around here today. Don't want the mayor to think that the NYPD is without any PR capability." He turned back to the man in front of him. "Let me get some forms from PR, so that we don't get sued if you get shot," the mystery novelist looked up at these words. "That's okay, right?" the captain asked him.

"Yeah, definitely," Rick assured the man, uncertainly, but with a grin on his face.

Detective Beckett couldn't believe what was going on here. "Uh, sir, can I have a word with you?"

The captain looked between the two people in front of him. "No." He walked away.


	9. The Station 2

A/N: Disclaimer in first part. Also note that there are spoilers here for 2x10 and 1x01.

Shocked that the captain wouldn't let her explain herself to him, she turned around, offering a glare to all three men in front of her.

The other detectives hid a chuckle when they saw her glaring at them.

Ignoring the mystery novelist at her elbow, Detective Beckett ordered, 'What did you find at his apartment?"

"Well, Super let us into Sam Parker's apartment," Detective Esposito began, only to be interrupted by Detective Ryan.

"At Jake Holland's apartment," interrupted the detective.

"Same thing," retorted the other detective.

"Yeah, I'm just trying to keep them straight," Detective Ryan told them.

"Anyway, there are no signs of struggle and Sam's bag-"

"Jake's bag," Detective Ryan interrupted again.

Beckett and Rick looked at the pair, one less than amused and one more than.

"Still sitting by the door from when he came home from visiting his family in Connecticut," continued Detective Esposito.

"Connecticut?" questioned the writer.

Ryan leaned against Beckett's desk as he explained the case to the man. "Yeah, see this guy has two identities: Sam Parker has a wife and two kids in Connecticut and Jake Holland has a fiancé in the city."

"It was "you can only reach me on my cell phone" to the wife and kids. But with the fiancé, it was the old "can't call from the nursing home that my father's in." Esposito finished.

"Oooh," the writer remarked brilliantly.

Both men decided to get back to work at the glare of their boss. Showing her a picture frame with the victim and his fiancé, Ryan was interrupted by a comment from their new visitor. "Oh, please tell me that's the whole double-sided picture frame gag."

"The lovely fiancé," showed Ryan, before switching to the back of the picture frame, "which can easily be swapped out for..." He showed them a picture of the victim with his wife and kids. "The wife and kids should they ever visit daddy in the City." He grinned at the two in front of him.

Beckett looked on in shock at the lengths this man went to for his cover identity.

Rick grinned at Detective Beckett, who continued to ignore him and instead listen to Detective Esposito as he held up a cell phone.

"The big new is," Esposito started, "that we found this sitting on the kitchen counter. There's a voicemail on it that you're gonna want to hear." He pressed play on the cell phone, letting another voice enter the air around them.

"I'm not gonna let you get away with this you worthless piece of trash," came a menacing voice. Rick looked up in surprise at the voice. "If you don't call me back tonight, then my next call is to Helen."

"Someone caught on to Rick's double life," Rick commented.

Beckett observed the scene quietly, processing all the information coming her way.

"Ran the number," Ryan offered. "Belongs to one Charles De Petra."

"De Petra," Kate asked, "That's his wife's maiden name. It's hyphenated on her driver's license," she glanced to her left, surprised to see Rick glance her way. She quickly turned back to the two detectives in front of her.

"Mmm-hmm," Esposito agreed, "Charlie… is Helen's brother."

"Ooh," remarked the writer again, almost gleeful at the new development for his…research.

"He found out what Sam was up to," Kate theorized.

"And decided to…"

"Take out the trash," finished Esposito as Ryan gave him a high-five at his statement.

Turning to the confused writer, Esposito explained, "Vic was tossed down a garbage chute in his apartment building."

"Jake's apartment building," Ryan said to them. They looked at him exasperated as Kate ordered them to find the brother and bring him in. They took off, ready to do her bidding.

"You know," she heard Rick whisper in her ear as he leaned in close to her head, "You are very good at giving orders."

"Can I ask you a question?" she asked him instead of killing him.

"Shoot," he offered, excited at the prospect of Kate's question. He wore boxers, which she already knew. But maybe there was something else that she wanted to know. He grinned to himself.

"What are you here?" she asked sincerely, wondering if the only reason that the author was there was to make her work uncomfortable for her. Was he going to tell everyone that she worked with how they knew each other intimately? "You're not here to see that your daughter's safe, because you know that she is. You don't care about the victims, so you aren't here for justice. So what is it, Rick, are you here to annoy me?" Kate asked the author harshly.

"I'm here for the story, Detective." Rick told her, unperturbed by her tone.

"The story," she repeated, unsure that she'd heard him correctly.

"Why this man? Why this murder?" he questioned, wondering why himself.

"Sometimes there is no story," she told him as she would a child. "Sometimes the guy is just a psychopath."

"There's always a story," he corrected. "Always a chain of events that makes everything make sense. Take you for example." She looked at him. "Under normal circumstances you should not be here. Most smart, good-looking women become lawyers not cops. And yet, here you are."

She considered why she was there, glaring at him for bringing it up.

"Do you think that he would have gone through with it?" Kate asked, ignoring the other conversation.

"Through with what?" Rick asked in response.

"Marrying Sarah if he hadn't gotten killed," Kate elaborated.

"Well, that was a pretty big rock that he put on her in the photo," Rick referred to the picture in the frame of the "happy" couple showing the camera Sarah's engagement ring. "The fake identity he had set up, the county clerk's office never would have flagged him as someone who was already married." Kate raised her eyebrows grudgingly as he laid out the facts of the case in a professional matter.

"Yeah, but Sam was pretending to be Jake before he met Sarah." Kate expounded to Rick Castle. "I don't understand the fake identity."

"Maybe to land the job," Castle suggested, a little unnerved at the way Kate was thinking out loud about her case.

"I understand fibbing on your resume. But changing your identity? The math doesn't quite add up for me." Kate looked at Castle, "How about you? Any suggestions, novel man?"

Instead of answering her question, Rick instead commented, "You know what math doesn't add up for me?"

"Hmm," Kate looked at him, wondering where he was going with this.

"Two wives," Rick answered. He raised his eyebrows.

"One wife too many for you," Kate responded with a smile.

"Two wives too many," Rick replied.

Kate shook her head. "Seems like the common denominator in that equation is you."


	10. The Station 3

A/N: Disclaimer in first part. Spoilers for 1x01, 1x05, 2x09, and 2x10. Little things mostly.

------------

"The man is a very good friend of the mayor, Detective," the captain told his favorite detective. "Garnering good will for the police department is a good thing to have."

He calmed down at the look on his police detective's face. She didn't appear to want to throw things at him. She almost never got to that point, wanting instead to throw punches at the bag in the gym or take it out at the shooting range. Maybe he should give her some headshots of the writer for the shooting range.

"Sometimes we need the good will. Especially if one of our cases doesn't look too highly upon the authorities in question." He remembered that case that they had concerning the last District Attorney. They'd managed to get the woman in charge by a stroke of luck, finding out that the District Attorney had been a pimp on the side, but he knew that investigating the higher ups was never a way to get on their good side.

"I know, sir," Beckett started, "It's just that he's a nine-year old on a sugar rush," she exclaimed. They looked outside at the precinct floor, in time to see the writer lean way back as he tried to see them through the windows, then fall out of his chair as he leaned too far back.

They looked at each other. "He'll be out of here soon enough, Detective," the captain told her, trying to be endearing. "How long is the volunteer internship for anyway?" He looked through the papers on his desk trying to find the forms from the intern's school.

"Three days, sir," Kate told him. She sighed as she flopped down on the couch in his room.

"Here it is," the captain read on the form. "Marlowe Academy. How did she pick us? And you?" the captain questioned out loud. "I mean, it's not like you know her," the captain asked the detective in front of him.

Kate was speechless as she tried to formulate a response. She didn't want to tell him how she knew Rick Castle, especially since the intimate details were, well, intimate. "You know, I'll make it work," she told the man as she left her office.

Captain Montgomery looked between his detective and the man currently wiping himself off from whatever he picked up from the floor when he fell out of his chair. He didn't, he thought, with Detective Beckett? Oooh, he thought as he smiled to himself.

Castle finished wiping schmutz off of his pants. He smelled his hand and then pulled back as he looked for a bathroom to wash off his hands. "Castle," he looked up to see Detective Beckett calling his name, pointing towards the break room. He followed, waving at the captain.

Kate entered the room, giving the lone police officer in there a look to leave the area. Quickly. The woman left out of the far side of doors, which Kate closed behind her. She also closed the other side of doors as well before grabbing a cup of coffee. Seeing Castle enter, she told him to close the doors behind him. Then she poured a cup of coffee for him, holding it out as she told him point blank, "If you let anyone know that I had sex with you, I will kill you."

He stopped mid-sip of the coffee, tasting it before he looked up at her eyes as she continued to describe how she would kill him.

"I will grind up your body. And burn off your fingerprints. And all so that there will not be enough of you for your poor daughter to make a conclusive identification." She smiled at him. "And if there is, my friend – the medical examiner – will make sure that there isn't." She gave him an even bigger smile that before. Kate looked at him, waiting for a response

"You know," Rick began, "This tastes like a monkey peed in battery acid." He indicated the coffee.

She smiled as she headed towards the exit.

"You know," he called as she made to exit the room. She stopped, waiting for the other shoe to drop. "I was thinking about the new main character for my next set of novels." Her back was still to him. "A tough but savvy female detective." She looked up in surprise as he continued. "Wouldn't you want to be my muse?" He smiled as she smile and closed the remaining door to the break room.

She sauntered up to him. "Rick," she told him, swaying slightly as she said his name. "Call me a muse again, and I'll break both your legs." She dusted off his lapels as she finally left the break room.

"Okay, not for her," Rick tasted the coffee again. "Blurgh!" he yelled, pouring the coffee in the trash. "So gross," he shuddered as he left the room too.

-------------------

Esposito left the suspect in the interrogation, telling his boss that Charlie DePetra was there as she sat at her desk looking up the victim's history, making sure that the social security number that he used hadn't been used elsewhere. She grabbed the file folder containing the case and stopped at the door to interrogation, forcing Castle to bump in to her back.

"Castle, you aren't going in there," Kate told him as she turned around. "Stay in there with the other detectives." She pointed to the room adjacent to the interview room, equipped with listening equipment so that anything that was said in the other room could be recorded. It also held the other side of the one-way mirror, so that police detectives could view the suspect while he answered their questions.

"Come on, Mr. Castle," Ryan told the man. "Come with us," he told the man as he led him into the room where Esposito was still waiting for the show to begin.

They watched as Kate took apart the man, asking him if he knew that Sam was cheating on his sister. The man admitted that he loaned the man money for his mortgage.

"He said that he needed a couple of months." The wife's brother told her. "When he started the new job in the city, I figured that he'd be making more dough.

"Helen didn't know about this?" Kate told him.

"He didn't want her to worry." The brother finished.

"Oooh, that's bad." Rick told the other guys. "The only reason to keep secrets from your wife is…"

"If you've got a fiancée on the side," finished Esposito, laughing with Ryan and Castle.

Kate could hear the laughter on the other side of the mirror. Looking at the case file, she caught her reflection in the mirror, making a slashing move across her throat.

"Oops," Esposito said seriously. They quieted down quickly, knowing that Beckett could make their lives so that they wished that they didn't have them if she wanted to.

"Is she really that bad?" Castle asked them.

"Let's just say that the last guy to go up against her, well, he wasn't heard from again," Ryan told Castle.

"Uh huh," Esposito agreed.

"He got transferred," the captain told the group as he approached. Castle and the other two detectives whipped their heads around, caught in the cookie jar so to speak.

The captain crossed his arms over his chest as he told them, "To traffic." The other cops' eyes widened as the captain finished, "I hear he gets Macy's Thanksgiving Parade every year." He chuckled at the thought of that parade, since it was the bain of existence for each and every police officer to direct hundreds of thousands of people coming into the city for that affair every year. Still chuckling, he watched as his detective finished her interview.

"He kept saying that he was pulling in less money," the brother-in-law told her. "I thought that he was lying." He put his hands on the table, "I mean, why take a job so far from home? And force Helen to deal with the kids on her own?" he questioned the motivations of his former brother-in-law. "Comes out now, he wasn't doing it for his family," he realized, "he wanted the freedom to cheat on my sister." Rick noticed that the guys beside him tensed up the same as the brother-in-law tensed up, wondering if the man would speak as he did or if he would try to leap over the table. Both detectives and the captain had seen it before; a seemingly innocent person leaping over the table at the detective questioning them. They didn't want to see it happen to Beckett; and if it did, they would be there.

---------------

"Brother's alibi checked out," Detective Ryan called out as he ambled down the hallway to the desks occupied by Detectives Esposito, Beckett and himself.

"He was working late when Sam-Jake was shot," he expounded, raising his hands to emphasize his point.

"Any word on Parker's financials?" his boss asked.

"Yeah, they're a paycheck away from defaulting on their mortgage," Ryan said.

"You know, the brother said that Sam was pulling in less money in his new job," Rick began, only to be interrupted by Beckett.

Kate rolled her eyes, "Your point, Castle?"

"But if Sam were strapped for cash, why would he quit the job that he had to take one job that would pay less?" Rick asked the group.

Ryan inserted, "Didn't his wife say that he was passed over for promotion? Maybe it was a pride thing?"

Rick scoffed at the idea. "Yeah, but factor in the sublet, not to mention gas, that's a high price to pay for pride."

"Yeah, well, never underestimate the fragility of the male ego," Kate replied, taking a sip of her battery acid flavored with monkey's piss.

"Oh, hey now," Ryan began as Beckett smiled at his consternation that she caused.

"How did you find out about the sublet?" Kate asked the writer next to her. She didn't think that the guys had told him everything in the case file.

"I read the case file," he replied simply.

"When did you read the case file?" she questioned him. She'd had the case file with her the entire time.

"When you were in the little girls' room?" he replied, nonchalantly.

"I gone for like a minute," she responded incredulously.

Ryan looked at the two fighting in front of him. They didn't look like they even remembered that he was there. He left.

"Speed reader. Skill I picked up from my years stranded at the New York Public Library." He offered in a friendly fashion. But still proud of his skill.

She glared at him, as if he was tricking her and would pull a rabbit out of his hat in a second.

"I'm going to Parker's office." She stood up.


	11. Work and The Station 4

The office of New York Recycle worked hard to project their image of cutting edge environmental technology that was going to change the world. The mass of chrome and steel was all recycled, broken up by large windows to efficiently trap heat in the winter and air-conditioning in the summer. The design scheme also reflected their environmental consciousness, using green and white to offset the metallic shine of the building. Beckett and Castle walked through the hallways with Jake Holland's boss, passing offices with recycle bins in every corner and large flora adorning the spaces in between.

"I don't know," Lance Carlberg said, "Maybe I should have seen it. His resume was almost too good to be true." Jake's boss walked alongside the detective and her "consultant" - as she finally decided to call him- telling them about the victim's qualifications. His tall frame was enclothed in an expensive suit, with a green polo shirt instead of an button-down that was usually expected in the CEO of a large corporation. His eyes conveyed his concern over having a murdered employee.

"Top of his class at Berkeley, Stanford Business School," Mr. Carlberg stopped and turned, looking at the police detective and her consultant.

"Must have really needed this job to lie so bad," Mr. Carlberg said, sitting down at his desk as they arrived in his office.

Rick sat across from him in the visitor's chair. The overpowering theme reflected in the office was the same as it was in the other parts of the building: metal, white, and green. Rich looked around at the green cups, white chairs. Trees in the background. 'An inside look at a "green" company,' he mused.

Kate stood, unwilling to give the implied power from her higher vantage point by sitting down. She knew that the appearance of power mattered to those in it, especially CEOs.

"So there's no other reason that you can think of as to why he lied?" Rick asked before she could.

"No," Mr. Carlberg stated sincerely.

"When you hired him, did you look into any of his references?" she finally asked.

"Of course I did, Detective," Mr. Carlberg assured her. "I called them all myself. And I got nothing but glowing recommendations," he finished.

"For a guy who didn't exist," Castle commented.

"I'd like to take a look at a copy of his resume if you still have it," Kate replied, handing him a business card.

"I'll have Human Resources e-mail a copy to you," he told her.

Rick pressed his lips together thoughtfully and rose from his chair to go, thinking that they were done with the interview so far.

Kate wasn't ready though. "Uh, before we go, were you aware that he was romantically involved with one of your employees?" she asked the man.

"Sarah," Mr. Carlberg answered. He looked between the two people standing before his desk. "She's… one of my best engineers." He looked honestly distraught at what had happened to her: having her fiancée turn up married and dead.

"Ever notice any drama there, any drunken fight at an office party? That sort of thing?" Rick felt that he could ask a few questions of his own.

"Never," the boss replied, "They actually seemed like a pretty solid couple." He looked up at the two asking questions, before telling them, "She must be going through hell right now."

* * *

"Beep! We're sorry, the number that you have reached is not in service. Please check the number, or try your call—" Beckett hung up the phone.

"That's the last one," she told the detectives next to her. And Richard Castle who still hadn't gotten bored and left her alone yet. Maybe she could find some paperwork to do for awhile while they fleshed out their leads.

"Every single reference he gave is no longer in service." Esposito summed up, standing next to his boss.

"When according to his boss they were all up and running six months ago." Ryan commented.

"So, who's answering the dummy lines?" Rick asked seriously from across the desk. It seemed to separate the real police from the "consultants." He had no idea that the only reason Kate called him that was so that she didn't have to take a seminar in public relations about what she really wanted to call him.

"Let's get a warrant for all these numbers," Kate ordered the two other detectives. "I'd like to know who they were registered to."

She locked eyes with Castle, going over the case file in her mind, still seeing the victim and the lengths that he went to in order to get a job, complete with dummy references. "This guy went to some pretty extreme lengths to get this job," she commented aloud.

"It must have amazing dental," Rick quipped.

* * *

Alexis had her own teeth to worry about or at least the pair of false teeth that she'd just finished downloading into the database. Finished with that entry, she finally managed to put it in a plastic bag, ready to go in to it's box and be shipped to storage. She'd pulled her hair back into a bun so that it wouldn't get in her way. And so that it didn't caught by the false teeth strewn about the place.

"Ew," she said to herself putting the false teeth in a bag as she saw Kate – Detective Beckett – and her father approach. 'What was he still doing here?' she questioned with her eyes as he approached her.

"I don't know where you got this work ethic," Rick told her, "but it certainly was not from me."

"Hey Dad," she addressed him. "And Detective Beckett." She smiled uncertainly at seeing them together again.

"Your father's just…helping with a case that we have," Detective Beckett told her as she looked around the room. Instead of boxes tossed around with stray evidence hanging out of them, each box was neatly labeled and organized. Each piece of evidence small enough to fit into a bag was in one; and when there were too many boxes for the shelve, the girl had stacked them neatly next to them.

"Really, helping?" Alexis questioned, her hand on her hip, unconsciously imitating Kate's posture from earlier by the elevator when Rick was offering up a story about he was there in the first place.

"Yeah, helping," she rolled her eyes at the girl and looked at Rick. She gave a shrug of her shoulder, "Or at least the captain thinks so."

"Oh, I see," she told them, and she did. Her dad's connections were pretty legendary.

"Hey, I like to think that I am being a valuable contributor to the case," he told the both of them. And he had been. Or at least enough so that Kate Beckett didn't kick him to the curb.

"How's it going?" asked Detective Beckett to her intern.

"Pretty good," she responded. "The computer was a little glitchy at first but that's because no one had run a software update in like two years, plus it picked up some viruses that I had to zap." She smiled at her boss, hoping for some appreciation of her work.

"I am realizing that you are way overqualified for this job," Detective Beckett told the intern, to her delight.

"Told you she was a smartie," Rick told the detective, obviously very proud of his daughter.

"But, I do have one question." Alexis asked. "Like you said before, most of the items here are pretty junky and meaningless," she began uncertainly, "I did find this though." She handed the detective a photo book, her worried eyes looking over the detective as the detective flipped through the photos.

"Oh," Rick exclaimed as he realized that he knew what Kate was holding. "It's a brag book. It's to brag about your kids. I used to have one in my wallet, now it's on my phone." He looked at his daughter again, knowing what was in his brag book. She didn't smile at him, but instead addressed Detective Beckett.

"Some of the pictures are really old, like they're one of a kind" she told Kate as the detective continued to look through the photos of holiday parties and old-fashioned clothes. "Seems like something worth returning, only it wasn't tagged or anything."

"Yeah, but the problem is that without a case number, it's difficult to find out who the victim was and how to get this back to the family." Kate closed the photo book with a sad look on her face.

Alexis sighed as she thought about what would happen to the pictures. "Okay, so then it just goes into the storage box, right?"

"I'll tell you what, Alexis," Detective Beckett thought it over and smiled at the girl. "I'll give you a list of all of the detectives who could have possibly worked this case," she handed the book back to Alexis. "Show them the pictures, maybe it'll trike up a memory."

The girl looked delighted as she was handed the photo book back. She'd actually get her own mystery to solve! It might not include a dead body, but it was way more interesting than false teeth.

"Only don't bother them if they seem busy," Rick interrupted her thoughts.

"You're one to talk," Kate shot back.

Alexis smiled at Detective Beckett. "Thanks so much," she told her sincerely.

"Mmmhmm," Kate told her. "Excuse me," she said as her cell rang.

Rick approached his daughter's work table where she'd laid down the things that she was busy cataloguing. He knew Detective Beckett was being extremely nice to a lowly intern; and he knew it wasn't because she liked him or wanted to see him again socially. She didn't even seem to like him hanging around her. And he was so charming too.

"Beckett," he could hear in the background.

"What's this?" He picked up small plastic bag from the table containing something that he couldn't identify.

"Dad," Alexis grabbed it out of his hand.

"Okay, I'll be right there," Detective Beckett told the other person on the phone.

Looking at her "consultant, she debated whether or not to leave Rick with his daughter. She could use the break from his quips but she couldn't do that to Alexis. Or to her captain, who looked ecstatically at her as he mouthed that he was on the phone with the mayor when they passed by. Apparently, Rick had invited both of them to a Knicks game when she'd been going over the autopsy report at her desk.

She interrupted the pair. "Fiancé's here; she wants to talk," she told Rick. "Castle," she said to herself. Never Rick again.

"Have fun," he told his daughter.


	12. Interview Room, Sam's, Station, Work

Disclaimers in first part.

A/N: Thanks for all the reviews! Sorry the update took so long. Also, thanks to adangeli for the betaing.

* * *

"I knew she looked familiar at the morgue, but I couldn't place it at first," Sarah Reed's voice was choked heavy with emotion. Still, Jake's fiancée looked determined to tell the detective her suspicions. Sarah Reed didn't know what to make of the consultant- as Detective Beckett had introduced the novelist – but she hope that he would believe her and support her claim about what she'd seen as well.

Kate decided to hold the interview in one of the extra rooms filled with overstocked furniture in the same shade of greens and browns popular in the 1970's. It was informal enough not to give the person being questioned the same fear and intensity that sitting in the interrogation room would, with its one-way mirror and blinding white walls. The difference didn't seem to be noticed by Sarah Reed, who channeled her own brand of quiet intensity into making the detective and her consultant believe what she was telling them.

"So you're saying that last night wasn't the first time that you'd seen Helen Parker," Detective Beckett questioned gently, but firmly from her position on a couch shared with Castle, facing Sarah. She needed to get the truth out of Sarah. Beckett still hadn't quite moved her out of the suspect column yet, but she also needed to let the woman know that she could trust the detective enough to tell her side of the story, whatever that may be.

"Well there was something about her face. And then it hit me," Sarah told them. "I had seen her in front of Jake's apartment a couple of weeks ago."

"Was she leaving the building?" Castle couldn't sit still any longer. This was his first chance to see the fiancée of the victim in person. He tried to imagine what woman would date and get engaged to a guy that was already married. How did she not know? His eyes ran down her curls, too loose to be called ringlets, but too tight to be called wavy. Her white button-down blouse showed her to be clean-cut and professional while her black cardigan was a nod to the mourning of her fiancée.

"No, she was sitting in her car across the street," Sarah said.

"And you're sure that it was Helen Parker." Beckett's mind worked overtime, figuring out how to make this information work with what she knew of Jake Holland/Sam Parker, his wife and his fiancée. Was Sarah Reed telling the truth or was she just trying to get Jake's/Sam's wife in trouble? If she was lying, was it because she felt scorned or did she have another reason for doing so?

"I'm sure of it now," Sarah confirmed intensely.

"Positive identification from all the way across the street in a car?" It didn't sound as if Castle believed her story either. His tone remained gentle though, and Kate was thankful that he didn't treat it lightly, knowing that if they pushed the fiancée too far that she might not come back if she had a real clue. Or, if the fiancée was telling the truth, she could miss it and lose an important clue in the death of Sam Parker/Jake Holland.

"I made a note of it because of the way she was looking at me. It was creepy. Like she was sizing me up." Kate glanced away from the fiancée, trying to ignore the heat Castle gave off as he sat beside her on the dilapidated couch.

"Ms. Reed, the past twenty-four hours have been overwhelming to say the least," she tried to let her down gently.

"It's not uncommon for witness's memories to be confused after a traumatic event." Richard joined in on Beckett's team, not quite believing Sarah's story, but not wanting to treat her harshly either. Especially if it turned out that she was telling the truth.

Sarah looked down at her hands. She realized that Beckett and Castle wouldn't believe her without some sort of proof. She took a deep breath, "Look, I know what I saw. She was sitting in a silver hybrid staring at the front of the building."

"And did you tell your fiancée about this?" asked Beckett dispassionately.

"No, at the time I just dismissed it. But now…," Sarah closed her eyes, gathering herself to finish her sentence. "It makes me wonder if I'm the only person in the whole situation who didn't know what was really going on."

* * *

The blue Crown Victoria pulled up at the driveway of Sam Parker's former house. Soccer gear graced the lawn in front of the three-story house, a perfect picture of the ideal home life in suburbia. A silver hybrid sat in the driveway.

Kate mentioned the silver hybrid to Castle as they pulled up, prompting him to comment, "I guess Helen did know about her husband's affair."

"That'd be a pretty strong motive," Kate commented herself, as she unbuckled her seat belt and grabbed her notebook before exiting the vehicle.

An elderly woman answered the door. After Beckett showed her badge, the woman showed them into the living room, sending a young boy to fetch Helen. Kate waited until Jake Parker's wife appeared before taking a seat opposite the widow. Kate related the fiancée's story to the victim's wife as the same elderly woman appeared with three cups of tea on a tray.

"You came all this way just because she told you some crazy story about me being parked outside the apartment." Helen Parker accepted a cup of tea from the elderly woman, setting it down on the coffee table next to Beckett, whose cup remained untouched since she didn't want to miss even a flicker of some emotion in the woman's eyes. Castle had no such compunction and was busy sipping his tea. The disbelief in Helen Parker's tone seemed to indicate she was telling the truth. But both Kate and Castle had been lied to before. Castle didn't need police training to know that some people appeared to tell the truth even when they were lying. And Beckett had people lying to her everyday. It made her more jaded and cynical in her personal life, but gave her great experience in determining who to trust.

Locking eyes with the victim's wife, Kate told her, "Ms. Parker, we have to take every lead seriously." Even ones that may be wrong, she silently communicated, hoping that Mrs. Parker wouldn't become defensive and stop cooperating because she didn't like to be thought of as a suspect. Every lead had a beginning and an end, even if the lead was false, at least there would be a beginning as to why the lead was false.

"Did you ever think that maybe…she made this up to take the attention off of herself?"

"She was specific about your car." Richard didn't think that someone could just get that detail right. His view of the wife differed from the victim's fiancée only in that her grief seemed less… put-together. Both women wore dark colors of mourning. Sarah Reed's eyes had been watery but her hair and make-up was less out-of place than Helen Parkers, whose her red eyes spoke to hours crying and tumbled hair.

"A silver hybrid? That's like saying somebody was wearing black shoes," Helen continued to tell the detectives, sure that they would see that the other woman was lying to them.

"That still doesn't answer the question." Kate didn't like to push grieving widows, but when that grieving widow could just as easily have killed her philandering husband, she did so. Especially when the philandering husband was already engaged to another woman.

Helen looked at the woman. "No. In the six months Sam had that apartment, I never went there," she denied.

"You never popped down just once for a date night," Richard pushed. "I mean Connecticut's not that far a drive." Connecticut was just over the bridge. And if her husband was spending a majority of his time in the city... 'Well, either she was a lot more trusting of her significant other than he would be or she was lying,' he thought. 'Everyone's trusting until they're burned,' he generalized.

"Well when you have two kids under the age of ten, popping down for date night mid-week is almost impossible." A little smile graced her lips as she thought the consultant was a man with no children so why would he understand juggling two young children with all of their activities and a spouse over an hour away. She took a deep breath as she remembered why the detective and her consultant were in her home. "Sam came home every weekend and I would see him then."

"Okay, well we just needed to check. It's possible that Ms. Reed was mistaken." Kate and Castle began to move from their places, stopping as Mrs. Parker continued to talk to them.

"Did it ever occur to you that she was the one who knew he was lying?" Now it was her turn to turn the tables around on the other woman.

Richard glanced at Kate, catching her eye before she replied to the woman. Her standard reply of "We're considering every scenario," did nothing to deter the woman.

"We got a lot of hang-ups last month. Do you think that's a coincidence?"

"Did you tell Sam about it?" Kate wondered what her husband's answer was.

"I did. He said it was telemarketers. But," she forced out what she thought, "it was her."

"How can you be sure?" Kate wondered.

"I know that she has our phone number. She's called since Sam was killed."

"Sarah called you?" Rick asked in mild disbelief.

"She called about the funeral details. Can you believe that?" Helen's tone went from distraught to fiery venom in the space of a few seconds. "If she thinks that she's going to show her face here, she is sadly mistaken."

"Was that the only time that you heard from Sarah?" Kate wondered.

"No. No, she called this morning and left some ridiculous message about getting things back from Sam that she had given him and then on and on about some pen that had been her grandfather's and…" Helen stopped to take a breath and better compose herself. "We were married for ten years and eight months. If she thinks that her six-month affair can hold a candle to that… I'm not giving her anything." She said in a final tone.

* * *

Despite Castle's talk about the drive "not being that far" from the victim's house in Connecticut to New York City, she was exhausted after the return trip. Dropping her keys on the desk, Kate slipped into her chair. 'Car-legs,' her mind forced through the facts in her tired head.

Castle seemed to change his opinion of what he'd told Mrs. Parker about the drive as he commented, "That was a long drive. I can see why he got that apartment in the city."

She refrained from throwing his words back at him; feeling a little better about not stooping to his level. Beckett looked up as Esposito approached them, a file folder in his hands.

"So I did some background on Parker's job situation. Turns out that his old employer, Connecticut Solutions, has been circling the drain. Over the last couple of years, they've lost half their market share to his new employer New York Recycle," he told them.

Kate turned it over the new facts in head. "Sounds like Sam was abandoning a sinking ship."

"To join the winning team," Castle added. She refrained from rolling her eyes at the added cliché. Another point for not stooping to his level. She wasn't exactly sure what his level was, but she was still rankled at how he'd pushed himself onto her case. Add that to the round-trip drive from Manhattan to Connecticut, and she was willing to work overtime without pay to finish the case as quickly as possible.

"Supposedly New York Recycle came up with some new technology which turned out to be a game changer. Apparently these two CEO's have been major rivals since day one." Esposito continued, content to dispense information to his boss and her new tagalong. She and Esposito already had a talk about the writer following her. He seemed pretty content to watch his 'control-freak boss' deal with the writer. She'd already spiked his coffee with disclosure tablets – used to dye the teeth to show kids better brushing techniques – for the control-freak comment.

Castle droned on, comparing the two CEO's to more well-known rivals. "Like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Kobe and LeBron." Castle smirked as he added, "Jolie and Aniston."

"We get the picture." Beckett stopped the list, hoping to get to the end of the day without an officer-involved shooting on her record. "Rivals."

"Yes, but otherwise maybe that's why Sam faked his resume. He didn't think that New York Recycle would hire him if they knew that he was from Connecticut Solutions." The plausible solution he offered, after comparing the victim's current and former bosses to two heavyweight actresses, caused her to stop and think. He was always doing that: tossing out seeming well-thought out theories along with his more outlandish trains of thought.

"Well that makes sense," she replied, unsure what to make of him.

Castle seemed surprised at her sincere compliment. "Thank you."

Ryan's laughter broke up what could have been a nice moment, that was also shared by Esposito looking carefully at the two of them. Kate craned her neck in his direction, her eyes perfectly expressing the sentiment: stop laughing and tell us what's going on before I do _something_ to you.

"You kidding me? Thank you, you've been very helpful." Ryan let the phone fall form his hands before jogging the two feet over to the group. "Hey the warrants just came through on the numbers on Sam's resume - his references' phone numbers. They're all billed and registered to Connecticut Solutions, his old firm." He looked delighted to be the one to offer this game-changing information. The victim's old firm paid to have his new firm hire him.

"Okay, why would they set up dummy phone lines and give phony recommendations?" Kate asked, her train of thought riding the same line as Ryan's.

"They wanted Sam to get hired," Castle also put together.

"He wasn't passed over for promotion." The train came into the station. Ryan and Esposito merely looked on, mere passengers in the event that was transpiring before their very eyes.

"He was planted at New York Recycle as a corporate spy," Castle finished meeting Beckett's eyes. 'Yes!' he thought. Two identities, one wife, one fiancée and now – intrigue. Double-o Seven had nothing on this!

* * *

Soon Beckett and Castle were back under the metal-and-glass ceiling of New York Recycle, breaking the news that Sam Parker was a corporate spy.

"I'm sorry." Carlberg turned back around from the window to face Detective Beckett and Castle. "I'm just trying to wrap my head around this idea. I mean, this is the guy who organized the potato sack race at the Labor Day picnic."

"Well there's considerable circumstantial evidence that he was planted here by his former employer," Beckett told the Carlberg. She might have felt sorry that Mr. Carlberg had to deal with corporate spying by a trusted employee, but any feelings that she had about the Sam's actions waned in comparison to the gruesome death that he suffered. "We just don't have the proof yet."

"Well obviously no one wants to get to the bottom of this more than I do. So you'll have our complete cooperation." Mr. Carlberg told them.

"Now what do you think that Connecticut Solutions was after?" questioned Castle.

"It's our battery recycling technology." Mr. Carlberg walked toward the center of the room while he explained the situation. "I'm sure you both know that you're not supposed to dump your batteries in with your trash." Beckett and Castle nodded as they followed him to the center of the room. "Batteries need to be disposed of properly or else the acids and heavy metals will leach out and- "

"And get into the water table." Castle concluded smartly.

"Exactly. Yes." Mr. Carlberg looked happier discussing his business than the issue of a corporate spy. He continued: "Well, storing battery sludge can get quite expensive. We figured out a way to actually recycle the stuff."

"So when you bid on a contract to haul away old batteries, you can do it cheaper." Castle followed aloud.

"Which is why Connecticut Solutions lost half of its market share to you." Beckett said, understanding why Connecticut Solutions was going down the drain while New York Recycle flourished. It crystallized the reasons behind a corporate spy: having someone steal that technology would give Connecticut Solutions a fighting chance against New York Recycle.

"Bottom line is they can't compete." Lance Carlberg's confirmed Beckett's and Castle's understanding of the situation.

"Was Sarah Reed on the team of engineers that developed that kind of technology?" Castle asked, another thought forming in his head.

"Yeah, that's right." Carlberg affirmed.

"That's probably why Sam Parker went out of his way to romance her: for access." Castle turned to Beckett to make sure that they were on the same page. "That's pretty smart," he finished.

"Hardly, don't you mean despicable?" Carlberg asked the writer, not sure if the man actually admired another man seducing a woman for information.

"The two aren't mutually exclusive," Castle told him.

"Would you mind if our forensic IT team took a look at Sarah's computer and Sam's – Jake's as well. They should be able to tell us whether your security was compromised and whether he got ahold of anything proprietary." Beckett, unlike Castle, knew that she had to have some evidence to prove anything in a court of law. Castle may have theories, but she had to back them up with something besides "Picture it…"

"Anything that we can do to help," Carlberg promised the detective and her consultant.

* * *

Beckett called the forensic Information Technology team to come pick up Sarah and Sam/Jake's computers. In the meantime they still had one or two employees left to canvas for information about Sam and his relationship with Sarah.

The first guy barely knew Sam – or Jake as he called him – except to say hello or goodbye. The reticence seemed based on his part, not Sam's, who he described as friendly and outgoing.

The second guy was not much better, although from his runny nose and coughing Beckett fully believed his story about being sick for the last week. He told them that the last time that he'd seen Sam was a week prior, and nothing seemed wrong to him. The only notable part of the interviews was when Castle jumped suddenly from the table as soon as the coughing started, choosing instead to stay near the frosted glass door at the entranceway to the room. Beckett wasn't too thrilled about being in close proximity to someone who used half a box of tissues in a twenty-minute interview, but she was too much a cop to admit any fear of such a little thing as a cold.

As soon as the guy left, Castle rushed to the sink in the room and began to wash his hands. Beckett tucked her reporter's notebook into her coat pocket while he finished up and started again.

"Castle," she scolded him, exasperated as his melodrama over a little cold.

"What?" Castle shot back, "I am not catching the bubonic plague from a guy that didn't even have any good information to share with us." He continued to scrub his hands like a surgeon about to go into open-heart surgery.

"Real cops deal with worse," Beckett told him matter-of-factly, ignoring the look that he gave her. She gave a short laugh as she pictured taking him to some of the more unseemly parts of the city.

"What?" Castle asked again, finally drying his hands and taking his scarf from his pocket where he stashed it when he realized they'd be spending some time inside.

"I'm just trying to imagine taking you to a cop bar," Beckett replied truthfully as they made their way to the door. The hallway to the outside was deserted for the time being. "You in your designer suits and … manicure." She lifted an eyebrow to the man.

"Hey!" Castle called out, affronted at attack on his manhood. "I write for a living – the manicure is required for my job." At her continued smirk, he smirked as well, shooting back, "And you didn't seem to mind so much the other night when my hands were… ow!" Beckett had grabbed his nose between two fingers on her right hand, pulling his head down to where she could whisper in his ear.

"You mention that night again and I swear that even if they find most of your body parts, there will be one that they will never find." Her look quieted most of his whimpers. "Do you understand?"

He nodded his head as best he could until Beckett finally released her hold on him. Shaking her own head she strode furiously away from him

"Hey!" Castle called, trying to catch up. He finally caught up to her at the exit of the building. She turned to him on the landing outside.

"Do you know how hard it is to be a female cop, Castle?" She asked him searching for some sign that he knew what he was about to say was serious. She decided to put it in words that he might understand. "I can't fully concentrate on the victims if I'm worried that you're going to suddenly state that we," she lowered her voice against non-existent eavesdroppers, "spent the night together. Okay?" She looked to him for confirmation that he understood.

"Apples," he told her.

She looked confused. "What?"

"That should be our safe word." He gave her a smile that served only to make Beckett angrier as her cellphone rang.

"Beckett," she answered, unable to keep some of the annoyance out of her voice. She and Castled continued walking towards the stairs that led to the exit of the building. "Okay, thanks. Forensic IT's taken possession of Sarah and Sam's computers."

"You know there are a lot of corporate secrets I could see ending a spy to steal but all this skulking around for some battery sludge?" Castle continued to discuss the case as if nothing else extraordinary had happened.

"Well like the man said, it's a business, like any other. But whoever runs Connecticut Solutions is going to have a hell of a lot of explaining to do." If Castle wasn't going to be bothered by their conversation, then she wasn't going to be either, Beckett decided.

They'd made their way out of the building, discussing the case as they stepped down another staircase.

"Is it true?" A voice called from above them.

Beckett and Castle looked upward to see Sarah Reed following them. She wore a distraught look on her face.

"Ms. Reed?" questioned Beckett, wondering what the woman had heard and cursing silently the gossip of an office.

"What they're saying, is it true?" Sarah continued to ask her.

"Look, I can't go in to details, but there's evidence that Jake was trying to steal information." Beckett was torn at the thought of the woman finding out not only that her fiancée was married, but also that he used her for corporate information.

"Then it was all an act." Sarah's voice broke as she considered every detail of their relationship.

"Now, that – that doesn't mean that he didn't care about you," Castle stammered out. Even he seemed concerned over how upset Sarah was at the moment.

"That's exactly what it means. He never loved me. He was just using me the whole time." Sarah looked around, as if the whole world was conspiring against her.

The ride back to the precinct was silent as Castle failed to find even one humorous thing to say about Sarah Reed's situation. He let out a long breath as he glanced out the window at the passing scenery.

"She looks like she has a good support system," Beckett offered. "At least where she works." She looked over at his face.

"So you think she'll be okay?" he asked, facing her for the first time since they'd left the office of New York Recycle.

"You can't tell, Castle," Beckett told him sadly. He turned away again, thinking about what Sarah was going through. Beckett thought about what she could say to him. He wasn't a child, as much as he might act like one. He wouldn't believe her if she said that she thought Sarah Reed would go on and have a great life. She didn't want to lie to him either.

"When I was working a patrol at the 6-4, my TO – training officer – and I responded to a domestic dispute." She realized the she had Castle's attention, although she still wasn't sure if she should be telling him this. She was acting like her T.O. had to her – training her through his own experiences as well as whatever they came upon in the streets those days. "It was between a girl and her group mother." She glanced at Castle's face to see some confusion. "She was in a group home – foster care." Castle nodded his understanding.

"Anyway, she had a fight with the mother because the mother wanted her to put her baby up for adoption. She was seventeen and still in high school. The father was another kid in a group home." The situation seemed cut-and-dry to the twenty-five year old who had gone to a good high school and a college in Boston. If the girl had the baby adopted, she could finish high school and go to college. Why not?

"My TO took a liking to the girl. He calmed down the group home mother and found a social worker that would help the girl keep her baby. Even though she had all these people telling her that she didn't have a good support system, she couldn't provide for the baby like another couple could – she refused to listen to them." Beckett kept her eyes on the road, unsure what Castle was thinking about the story.

"After the patrol, I worked a year in Vice – before Homicide." She snuck a glance at Castle, who seemed to be listening to the story. "We were working this stroll where the prostitutes work. Found a pro in a car: dead." She sighed as she remembered how green she was at the time. "It wasn't the first time I'd seen a dead body. But I'd known her from previous busts. Had even talked with her once. It was the first time – besides my mother – that I'd known someone before they'd become a victim." Beckett wished that she hadn't started this story, but she felt compelled to finish it.

"I checked around, wanting to see if the case would go anywhere. It didn't." She smiled bitterly at Castle. "A pro killed in a major prostitute trafficking area – no leads, no evidence, nothing.

"Anyway – I checked around, found out that she'd been a foster kid as well. She'd actually finished with honors in high school. Had a scholarship to Hudson – paid for room, board, everything. Turns out she just couldn't escape though." Beckett brought the story full circle. "I decided to look up the other girl – see what she'd done with her life and all. She's with the baby's father. They're married now. They have their own apartment and jobs and everything." She shook her head at the thought of two girls with very different lives and how they'd gotten there. "Can't tell Castle. Who swims and who sinks. Depends on the person, the environment. Everything." She gave Castle a small smile.

"Yeah, I guess," Castle told her. He sat up.

"It's not like a novel, is it Castle?" She asked him seriously. They exchanged a look before returning their gaze towards the traffic in front of them.


	13. Office, Car, Sam's

Disclaimer: In the first chapter

A/N: Apparently some of you guys are still reading this. I'll try to finish it up within a week ;D

* * *

Esposito and Ryan met Beckett and Castle at the elevator doors, briefing them over what they had learned from the IT techs – that Sam Parker created a program on his computer to send e-mails outside of the corporate system. The e-mails, all filled with chemical formulas, went to Sam's old boss at New York Recycle's rival in the battery disposal business.

"Andy Berman. He's the CEO of Connecticut Solutions.," Esposito gave Beckett a file folder filled with his research into the new suspect.

"He must have been who Sam was reporting to." Beckett responded as she flipped through the pages.

They exchanged a bunch of e-mail a couple of months ago. Then nothing until the night Sam was killed," reported Ryan.

"What did that one say?" asked Castle.

"Call me. We need to talk." Esposito told them in a serious tone.

* * *

Esposito let Beckett know that Berman was in interrogation room. He and Ryan entered the observation room to watch the interview between Beckett and the man that sent Sam Parker to his rival as a corporate spy.

Castle followed Beckett to the interview room, bumping into her as she stopped suddenly. She turned around to face the writer.

"Remember Castle," warned Beckett. "You are in here by invitation only. Got it?"

"Got it," he answered easily.

Andy Berman looked like a normal guy, with his retro glasses and striped tie. He didn't look like the CEO of a multi-million dollar company, although Beckett wasn't sure if that was from his personality or his company going down the tubes.

"Okay yes, it's true. Sam e-mailed me the other night and I called him," admitted Mr. Berman.

"From a payphone," added Beckett, a note of incredulity in her voice over Berman's less-than-professional attempts to conceal his phone call. More _Get Smart_ than James Bond, she thought.

"At a gas station near my house," confirmed Mr. Berman.

"Very cloak-and-dagger of you," Castle commented, unable to add his two cents. Beckett suppressed her smile as she concentrated on getting the information that she wanted and needed from this potential suspect. She was starting to piece together the corporate espionage scheme in her mind, but she knew that her thoughts would not put away any person responsible for taking the life of the man who had people who missed him, although they probably missed him more before they knew about the other woman in his life. He still had kids that she had to focus on, so that they would not be left with questions one day that would haunt them.

"He said that he needed to meet near the city," Berman continued emotionlessly, oblivious to her feelings regarding the victim, his former employee. "Said that he'd finally figured out how New York Recycle was pulling it off."

"So you admit that you planted him there to steal their battery technology," Beckett wanted the man to admit.

"They've been underbidding us left and right. Stealing our business," Berman told them, unapologetic about his own criminal actions that may have led to a man dying. "Getting our hands on their recycling method was a way of leveling the playing field. They weren't going to share it. So I offered Sam a million dollar payday if he could get ahold of it," finished Mr. Berman.

"And when he called and said that he completed his mission… you rushed right over," continued Castle.

"The thing about Sam is that he and I had been down this road before," Mr. Berman said with some note of uncertainty in his voice.

"What do you mean? He'd told you he'd found it before." Castle leaned forward as his interest in the case increased even more, if that were possible. He'd been afraid that Beckett would interrupt him, in fact he almost expected it. But after their conversation in the car and his intelligent questions, she seemed content to let him question the suspect. For now. He knew that she only had to flick a glance at Ryan and Esposito behind the mirror and they'd get him out of the room.

"I wasted hundreds of thousands on research and development on the stuff that he brought me," Berman told them, facing the man who'd asked the question. "The chemical formulas were never complete so when my engineers tried to fill in the blanks and test them we failed every time. Finally we ran out of money so a couple of months ago I had to cut Sam loose."

"If Sam wasn't working for you, what was he calling about?" questioned Beckett.

"He said that he needed to show me something," Berman said.

"What?" asked Beckett.

"I don't know. I drove into the city to meet him at his apartment and as I pulled up there were cops all over the entrance. I got a bad feeling about it so I turned around and I drove home." Berman didn't seem affected at all by the death of a former employee.

"That's a very interesting story Mr. Berman," commented Beckett, towering over the man seated across from her as she rose from her own chair. She began to circle around the table, aware that both Mr. Berman and Castle's eyes followed her every movement. "But I have a different ending. One where you went upstairs to Sam's apartment and he told you that he finally found the real thing. You said so yourself – your company didn't have the million dollars to pay him. So you did the one thing that you could-," she leaned into Berman's face, "you killed him and you stole it in a desperate attempt to save your sinking company."

"I would like to call my lawyer now, please." The man swallowed forcefully.

Castle gave Beckett a contented smile. This was how interrogations were supposed to go!

* * *

"That was pretty cool how you filled in the story there. Think I must be rubbing off on you," Castle thought for a second. "That sounded dirtier that I meant."

Beckett smiled and shook her head. Maybe Castle wasn't such a bad guy after all.

"Yo Beckett!" called Esposito, causing her to turn and face the other detective and his partner, who were wearing suspicious smiles. "Dispatch just got a call out of Connecticut. New Haven PD have two women involved in an altercation."

"Speaking of dirty," commented Castle in Beckett's ear.

Then again, Beckett thought as she could feel a migraine coming on.

"And the ladies in question are asking for you before they're taken in for booking," added Ryan.

"For me? Why?" asked Beckett sincerely confused. Then she realized. "Oh no."

"Oh yes," said Ryan, still grinning. "They're holding Helen Parker for assault and Sarah Reed for trespassing."

"A wife and fiancée catfight." Castle's eyes widened as he thought of the possibilities. "Please tell me we can stop for popcorn on the way?" he asked Beckett.

Beckett turned away, tired of being surrounded by guys whose maturity level seemed stuck in high school

"Castle," whispered Ryan, motioning with his hands. "Pictures."

Castle nodded and gave the Esposito and Ryan two thumbs up as he followed Beckett to the car.

* * *

The car ride from the Twelfth Precinct back out to Connecticut was filled with more jokes about women-on-women fighting (Castle's) and more thoughts about dumping bodies on the side of the highway (Beckett's). There was also a new intensity to their theories about one of the women killing Jake/Sam over his secret relationship with the other woman. Kate may have enjoyed building theory with Rick – Castle – earlier, but not since his new tangent about the two women having an affair of their own and hatching the plan to kill Sam/Jake. They always seemed to have their private discussions in a teddy or lingerie.

"Yes, Castle, and then they held each other out as suspects because why now?" Beckett questioned, exasperated with the hour long drive of "How about this..." Castle-driven theories.

"Because, then they couldn't be blamed," Castle's eyes brightened even more as he spun out his half-baked theory. "Even if one was charged, they could hold the other one out as a reasonable suspect." He snapped his fingers loudly as he twisted in his seat toward the actual detective. "It's perfect!"

"No, Castle, it's not." Beckett said as they finally, FINALLY, pulled up at the two-story house in suburban Connecticut. "First of all, we've found no evidence that they knew each other before hand." She turned toward Castle, counting the reasons out on her hand. "Second, what about all of the stealing corporate secrets, huh? It's just a coincidence that he calls his old boss about corporate espionage on the _night_ that he was killed?" She gave him a look before unbuckling her seat belt. He considered those things as he unbuckled his own seat belt. "And finally, Castle, this isn't a TV show or one of your _novels_. Save the crazy theories for them," she said with finality. She opened her door, turning back when she heard his door open.

"No, uh uh." She shook her head to emphasize her point. "You are staying here, Castle." She caught the protesting look on his face. "I can't have the mayor complaining that I let his star author friend get beat up by a couple of women in the middle of a catfight, Castle. Now promise me that you're going to stay in this car," she smirked at his discomfort, "or I'll have to show you how my taser works." She raised an eyebrow waiting for his consent.

"I promise," he whined disconsolately. She raised another eyebrow at him. "Scout's honor, okay." He held up his hand in the Scout's salute, hiding his grin until she turned away.

She smirked as she left the car, telling the nearby officer to keep on eye on her passenger. She knew that it was pretty petty to enjoy the look on his face-getting so close to a catfight and yet, so far away. Yet, she didn't care all that much about it anyway.

She kept the smirk on her face she met up with the New Haven PD officer near the side of the house, letting him brief her on the situation. It turned out the fiancé had been found by the wife as she was leaving the detached office in the back of the house, where the husband/fiancé used to work at home.

"She tried to rip my purse off my arm-almost dislocated my shoulder," Sarah Reed announced as soon as she saw the detective step into view in the backyard.

If she was looking for a sympathetic ear, she wasn't going to find in her, Beckett thought as she questioned, "Ms. Reed, what were you doing in the Parkers' office?"

"She wouldn't give me back my pen." Sarah Reed shot back defiantly.

"Your pen?" Castle interrupted incredulously. Beckett's head whipped around to glare at the intruder. Castle shrugged unconcerned, "I never was a boy scout." She gave him another glare before turning back to the fighting women in front of her.

Sarah didn't seem to care either, "My grandfather's fountain pen. I gave it to Jake –"

"Sam! His name was Sam!" Helen yelled shrilly at the other woman.

Sarah continued to explain, "I'd given it to him before I knew he was a lying sack. And she wouldn't give it back to me."

"I looked for it in the office. There was nothing there. I have no idea what she's talking about." Helen turned toward Beckett, with a look that she was the sane one here and the woman across the yard was the crazy one.

Sarah interrupted again. "Oh, really. Well then what do you call this?" She pulled a fountain pen from her purse, holding it defiantly against the accusations from the woman across from here.

"That was in the office?" Castle questioned before Beckett could say anything.

"Yes, it was right there in the drawer – how she could have missed it – I don't know. Unless of course she was lying and never bothered to look," Sarah accused the woman.

The two women continued to bicker over the pen, until Beckett finally stepped in. She offered to look into the trespasser's purse, to see if there was anything in there that obviously didn't belong. Unless there was something that said "Parker" on it, there was no way to prove that Sarah Reed didn't own it.

Putting the purse back, Beckett decided to finish the scene quickly and without bloodshed. "Is everyone okay? Can we all just walk away?"

Helen decided to finish it off with the threat, "If I ever catch your face around here-"

"For crying out loud, give it a rest! No wonder the guy had an ulcer! I would too if I were married to you!" Sarah shot back piercingly.

That seemed almost too much for Helen to take. "What are you talking about you crazy lunatic-"

Beckett stepped in again, "Look, look!" She commanded, making sure that she had their attention before continuing. "I understand that you are both angry and feeling betrayed, but taking it out on each other isn't going to help!" She looked at each of the woman as she continued "So you can both press charges and make a bad thing worse, or you can calm down and both walk away." Looking at the defiant faces in front of her, she ended with the statement, "Option number 2 is a limited time offer."

* * *

The car ride back to the precinct was a different story again. Beckett still seethed over Castle not following her directions as well as being puzzled by something that she couldn't put her finger on. All together, she didn't have the time or the mental prowess to worry about her passenger. He was alive and that was all that she cared about during that car ride. And not even that was high on her priorities at that moment.


	14. Beckett's Car

Disclaimer in first part

* * *

"You know, you shouldn't leave the car running," informed Rick matter-of-factly, "It wastes gas."

"I don't plan on being here long, Ricky," Kate replied more than a little peeved after her very long car drive. "I'm just dropping you off. Good night." She sat expectantly, waiting for him to move. Unfortunately her shadow for the day didn't seem to share her thoughts.

"You know you could come in. We could debrief each other," he smiled winningly.

Kate narrowed her eyes at the invitation. "So Alexis could catch us a third time," she smiled at his wince.

"It's after 10pm on a school night. She's probably asleep by now," Castle told her, almost masking the note of uncertainty in his voice. He too was remembering their last mornings-after.

"Still, Mr. Castle, I think it's time for our impromptu and inappropriate partnership to come to an end. Tell Alexis I'm looking forward to seeing her tomorrow. Goodbye." She waited for him to move again.

"All right, Detective Beckett," Rick's hand rested on the door handle. "Until tomorrow then."

Kate's hand shot out and grabbed Rick's arm. ""What! Tomorrow? No Rick, this was just a one time thing." She looked increasingly panicked at the thought of having her loquacious, uncontrollable, doesn't-stay-in-the-car-when-she-tells-him-to, two-night stand following her around for another day.

"Well, we didn't find the killer," Rick looked at her knowingly, "Come on, you're not going to make me live the rest of my life not knowing who killed this guy?" He somehow managed to be both pleading her and commanding her to let him stick around.

"Sometimes, Rick," Kate told him slowly, "We don't find the killer." She matched his look of disbelief with one of her own. "Sometime, Rick, the killer actually gets away." She held his gaze, letting him know a fact that was deeply personal to her.

"But you're a great detective, Kate," Rick continued in a low voice.

Kate shot him a look saying what she thought of that statement.

"I know that you're a great detective Kate. And that's not just me saying so or Alexis telling me that you're great," he noticed her slight blush at the mention of his daughter. "The mayor thinks so too."

"The mayor? What does the mayor have to do with this?" Kate wondered as a thought formed in her head. "You talked about me with the mayor?"

"Yeah, at my poker game," Rick told her effortlessly. "What?" He started to look worried as Kate put her head in her arms and let it fall onto the wheel of the car.

"You talk about me with the mayor? My boss's boss?" She asked again, muffled through her hands. Another thought occurred to her, causing her to raise her head in shock "You don't talk about me to anyone else, do you?"

Rick started to feel uncomfortable under her heated gaze. "Just the commissioner. And a judge I play golf with." He smiled lightly at her obvious distress.

"Great Ricky," she forced out, "Seven years as a cop and the mayor and the commissioner, and which judge was it, know that I slept with you. Hmm, great idea, Ricky." She slumped into her seat.

"Hey, hey, they don't know that I – we slept to together," he told her. "Just the fact you and Alexis were getting close and I wanted to know more about you." He paused. "For her."

Kate shook her head, refusing to look at the man who had turned her world inside out in the space of a few weeks. She thought back to that night. She had felt on air - it was her birthday; she'd gotten to see her favorite – and only – cousin who happened to get her an advance copy of her favorite author's work. And then to meet said author. And to sleep with him, she continued in her thoughts. That was where things went wrong. She groaned and let her head fall back on the wheel as she considered how much easier her life would have been if she hadn't taken him up on his offer to 'See where the magic was made.' She should have just thanked him politely and gone home.

"Kate," Rick's worried tone roused her from her thoughts. "Are you okay? Look," he continued, "I really didn't tell them how we knew each other. But is it really so bad? I mean, you're," he tried to find a word to describe her, "extraordinary." Kate lifted her head up again, meeting his soft gaze.

"It's hard, Rick," her own tone had softened, gaining a husky quality that didn't go unnoticed by Rick. "A female cop." She shook her head, "There are always going to be other cops who don't think that I belong. That I only got to my position because I'm female."

"The guys don't think so," Rick told her confidently.

"Yeah," Kate leaned back. "I know they do. They're good guys." She smiled, reflecting on her team. She laid her hand on the gear shift between their two seats. "So?" she questioned him, nodding her head at the door handle. "Goodnight, Rick."

"Are we still on for tomorrow?" Rick's determination not to leave without an assurance was like a puppy and a Manolo Blahnik $600 shoe. Something he knew that he shouldn't have, but didn't want to let go of anyways.

"Yeah, why not? Maybe you'll be able to give us some insight on how he juggled two women at the same time." She let the remark fly, hoping to quell her rising emotions and lighten the atmosphere at the same time.

"Until tomorrow then, Detective Beckett," Rick gave her a small smile before leaning in to plant a kiss on her cheek.

Kate saw him move towards her, offering her cheek for the light kiss, then turning to face him for the final goodbye of the night.

And was unable to let go of his gaze once caught in it. Instead, she seemed drawn to his lips, his eyes, unable to let go for a moment. She lifted a hand almost against her will, dragging it across his cheek and the stubble that she found there. She leaned in to kiss him, stopping just before reaching his lips. Their breaths intermingled as each wondered whether the other would back out. Neither did.

The kiss that followed was different than the others. Previously, the kisses had been fueled by passion, the red hot emotion that caused a woman to spend the night with a man she didn't know. Or the kisses that happen because you didn't know what else to do when you saw someone die in front of you but survived. This kiss was a mixture: a lingering of lust that always seemed to be lurking behind the everyday goings-on of work and family and friends, but this time mixed with a little more understanding of the other person. Of knowing what turned them on or what caused them to moan like that.

Kate's thoughts were nowhere near the sentence-forming stage after deciding that Rick Castle really did know how to kiss a girl senseless. That was the only thought in her head that made sense as to why she suddenly released her seatbelt and climbed over the center console to sit in Rick's lap. Her knees bended almost awkwardly, she thought, before she found his mouth again.

Rick's hands were busy as well as they slid under her shirt. They ghosted over her pale skin, relishing in the softness of her body as she continued to make little moaning sounds in his mouth. He brushed the sides of her breast, forcing them out of bra so that he could play with her nipples, forming them into tight peaks that felt just as good to her as they did to him.

Kate leaned back, even more awkwardly, she thought, as she also contemplated Rick's swollen lips. She wondered if she looked the same to him.

Rick removed his hands from under her shirt. He rubbed a pad over her lips, then let his hands move lower, slipping through the gold chain until they rested on the ring hanging between her breasts.

Kate looked at it as well. Her thoughts forming far away from a make-out session with a famous author.

"What are you thinking about?" Rick questioned huskily.

"Rings," Kate replied. "And pens." Her brow furrowed as she contemplated the evening's events again. Something felt off. Something that she was missing. Ulcers? What was it Sarah said about his wife giving Jake ulcers?

She felt Rick's eyes on her and knew that she had better reply with something more concrete than ulcers, especially when she wasn't sure what that meant.

"I mean, she went back for her grandfather's pen. Broke into someone else's home. Her fiancée's wife's and children's place for a pen that she gave him," Kate commented still amazed at the woman's actions.

"You called," Rick reminded her.

"I know," Kate shook her head wistfully. "The worst morning-after of my life and, I called. So that I could get my mother's ring back." She still felt something was a little off though. "I mean, I know that Sarah called too, but still. To break into someone else's home for a pen. I guess I just could never imagine giving away my mother's ring." She pulled the ring out of Rick's hands, staring at it as if it held the secrets to the case. She managed a small smile for Rick to show that she was okay before lifting herself off of his lap, to his obvious displeasure.

"Goodnight, Rick," Kate sang to him, unlocking the car doors again from her control panel.

Rick finally got out of the car, taking off his jacket and placing it in front of him so that he could walk into the building without garnering any special attention. Before he shut the door, he sent Kate off with an, "Until tomorrow."


End file.
